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Quick Take

Elon Musk’s Starlink system helped provide internet access to communities affected by the recent hurricanes. But online posts spread baseless claims that Starlink “uploaded votes in swing states” and helped Donald Trump win the election. Experts said voting machines are not connected to the internet during tabulation; one state election official called the claims “utter garbage.”

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Full Story

President-elect Donald Trump won the presidential race propelled by victories in all seven swing states. Trump not only won the electoral college, but he is ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris in the popular vote by about 2.6 million votes, as of Nov. 18.

In a statement days after the election, Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, wrote, “As we have said repeatedly, our election infrastructure has never been more secure and the election community never better prepared to deliver safe, secure, free, and fair elections for the American people. … Importantly, we have no evidence of any malicious activity that had a material impact on the security or integrity of our election infrastructure.”

Nevertheless, baseless accusations of 2024 election interference have spread on social media. Most recently, claims from partisan users are targeting Elon Musk’s Starlink system, a division of SpaceX that provides satellite-based broadband internet.

Musk, CEO of SpaceX, endorsed Trump, who announced on Nov. 12 that Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, a 2024 Republican presidential candidate, would lead what Trump is calling the Department of Government Efficiency. Trump said the new department would “provide advice and guidance from outside of Government,” CNN reported.

The social media posts have falsely claimed that Musk, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin conspired to rig the election in Trump’s favor by using Starlink to systematically switch votes across swing states. We debunked a similar conspiracy theory that a secret supercomputer and accompanying software program were used to switch votes from Trump to President-elect Joe Biden in 2020. Federal and state officials, as well as experts who study election security, flatly rejected such claims at the time.

One of the recent posts asked, “Why was Starlink involved in any way with the election tabulation?”

A second social media user misleadingly wrote, “The Russians have access to Starlink terminals and therefore the satellites. The Russians are known hackers. Elon Musk and the US gov. sent Starlink terminals to Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia due to the hurricanes.”

Another social media user said, “Trump cheats at everything in life. Putin interfered in [the] past 3 elections. Musk & Trump talk to Putin a lot. Musk’s Starlink uploaded votes in swing states. Swing state voters went Dem downballot but Trump at the top? Unlikely. Starlink satellites exploding, destroying evidence.”

Starlink did deploy satellite systems to provide internet access to communities affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton. But that emergency response effort had nothing to do with the tabulation of ballots in the election.

No Evidence of Systematic Vote Switching

Voting machines are not connected to the internet during voting tabulation, experts explained.

Cait Conley, senior adviser to the CISA director, told us in an email: “There are a number of reasons why the nation’s election infrastructure has never been more secure. First, the machines Americans use to vote are not connected to the internet.”

Ted Allen, an associate professor of integrated systems engineering at the Ohio State University and an expert with the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, said in an email, “It is my understanding that there is no involvement of Starlink in vote tallying in any U.S. county, even for overseas military voters. There was a time when the process was different for some states many years ago, before Starlink existed.”

In Georgia, state law explicitly prohibits voting machines from connecting to the internet. In response to the social media posts, Mike Hassinger, a spokesperson for the Georgia secretary of state, told us, “This conspiracy is utter garbage and 100% false. No Georgia election tabulation is connected to the internet, ever, not by Starlink or anything else. Starlink equipment was not deployed for or used in any way in connection [to] the 2024 general election.”

North Carolina law also expressly forbids internet connectivity in its voting machines. Patrick Gannon, a spokesperson for the North Carolina State Board of Elections, told us, “We have no evidence of any alteration of votes by anyone. We ask, again, that people stop spreading false information about elections.”

“Satellite-based internet devices were not used to tabulate or upload vote counts in North Carolina,” Gannon explained. “Our tabulated results are encrypted from source to destination preventing results being modified in transit. Additionally, tabulators and ballot-marking devices are never connected to the internet.”

The Wisconsin Elections Commission released a statement addressing the social media claims on Nov. 14, reassuring the public that Starlink “was not used to alter … official or unofficial election results” in the state. According to the commission’s website, “During the hours in which ballots are cast by voters, there are zero tabulators in Wisconsin with network connectivity enabled.”

The battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania have established comparable procedures.

There are a few exceptions in limited circumstances, the Associated Press has reported. “There are some jurisdictions in a few states that allow for ballot scanners in polling locations to transmit unofficial results, using a mobile private network, after voting has ended on Election Day and the memory cards containing the vote tallies have been removed,” the AP said in an Oct. 9 story. But experts have said that practice is risky and “should be prohibited,” the AP reported.

Additional checks and security measures further prevent the possibility of fraud throughout the election process. Conley told us, “Election officials have put in place multiple layers of safeguards to protect election systems, including pre-election testing of equipment, cybersecurity protections, physical access controls, and post-election auditing.” 

“Over 97 percent of registered voters – including voters in every swing state – cast a ballot in jurisdictions where they received a paper record that they themselves could verify,” Conley said. Paper records also enable states to conduct post-election audits of tabulated results.

“Each state runs elections differently – different processes, different equipment – and it’s this diverse and decentralized nature of our nation’s election infrastructure that creates tremendous resilience and ensures no single point of failure,” Conley said.

As for claims about “Starlink satellites exploding,” decommissioned Starlink satellites are designed to burn up during reentry in an effort to promote space sustainability and safety. The recently spotted fireball in the southwestern U.S. was likely a decommissioned Starlink spacecraft. Starlink satellite reentries occur nearly every day, Jonathan McDowell, a science data system group leader at NASA’s Chandra X-ray Center, told PolitiFact.

And contrary to some of the social media posts, the practice of voting for candidates of opposing political parties in the same election, often called split-ticket voting, is not proof of election interference.

Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told us for a story in November 2020, “Even in an era of strong partisanship, some voters split their tickets.”

This isn’t evidence of votes being switched by Starlink or any nefarious actor.

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

NBC News. “2024 President Results: Trump wins.” Accessed 14 Nov 2024.

Miller, Zeke, et al. “Trump wins the White House in a political comeback rooted in appeals to frustrated voters.” AP News. 6 Nov 2024.

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. “Statement from CISA Director Easterly on the Security of the 2024 Elections.” Press release. 6 Nov 2024.

Hale Spencer, Saranac. “Both Sides Distort Incomplete Vote Counts to Falsely Suggest Election Fraud.” FactCheck.org. 12 Nov 2024.

Afreen, Uzma. “Trump, Vance Opted Out of Oregon’s Voter Guide, Contrary to Online Claims of ‘Voter Fraud.’” FactCheck.org. 29 Oct 2024.

Keefe, Eliza. “Video Shows ‘Voter Error,’ Note ‘Election Interference’ in Kentucky.” FactCheck.org. 4 Nov 2024.

Starlink. “High-Speed Internet Around the World.” Accessed 14 Nov 2024.

Beltran, Luisa. “SpaceX org chart: The top executives running Elon Musk’s space tech company.” Yahoo Finance. 20 Nov 2023. 

Gregerson, Erik. “Elon Musk.” Britannica. 17 Nov 2024.

Jin, Hyunjoo, and Alexandra Ulmer. “Elon Musk endorses Trump in presidential race, calls him ‘tough.’” Reuters. 14 Jul 2024.

Shear, Michael, and Eric Lipton. “Trump Taps Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to Slash Government.” New York Times. 12 Nov 2024.

Blackburn, Piper Hudspeth, et al. “Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead new ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ in Trump administration.” CNN. 12 Nov 2024.

Hale Spencer, Saranac, and Angelo Fichera. “MyPillow CEO’s Video Rehashes Debunked Election Fraud Claims.” FactCheck.org. 5 Feb 2021.

Fichera, Angelo, and Saranac Hale Spencer. “Bogus Theory Claims Supercomputer Switched Votes in Election.” FactCheck.org. 13 Nov 2020.

Gallagher, Shaun. “Here’s how Starlink satellites are getting western NC back online.” WRAL News. 3 Oct 2024.

White House. “FACT SHEET: UPDATE: Biden-Harris Administration’s Continued Response to Hurricane Helene.” 30 Sep 2024.

White House. “FACT SHEET: UPDATE: Biden-Harris Administration Continues Life-Saving Preparations for Hurricane Milton.” 8 Oct 2024.

MIT Election Data and Science Lab. “Experts.” Accessed 18 Nov 2024.

Georgia State Election Board. “Rule 183-1-12-.05. Security of Voting System Components at County Elections Office or Designated County Storage Area.” 29 Oct 2024.

North Carolina State Board of Elections. “10 Facts About Election Security in North Carolina.” Accessed 15 Nov 2024.

Wisconsin Elections Commission. “No, Starlink, a Satellite Internet Service Provider, Was Not Used To Alter Election Results.” 14 Nov 2024.

Wisconsin Elections Commission. “Election Results Transmission.” Accessed 17 Nov 2024.

Arizona Secretary of State. “Voting Equipment.” Accessed 15 Nov 2024.

Michigan Bureau of Elections. “Election security in Michigan.” Accessed 15 Nov 2024.

Nevada Secretary of State. “Voting System Testing And Security.” Accessed 15 Nov 2024.

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. “Election Security in Pennsylvania.” Accessed 15 Nov 2024.

Cassidy, Christina. “Voting systems are targets of conspiracy theories, but get tested for accuracy and security.” AP News. 9 Oct 2024.

MIT Election Data and Science Lab. “Post-Election Audits.” 4 Sep 2024.

SpaceX. “Commitment to Space Sustainability.” Accessed 15 Nov 2024.

Lagatta, Eric. “Video shows Starlink satellite that resembled fireball breaking up over the Southwest: Watch.” USA TODAY. 11 Nov 2024.

Tingley, Brett. “Starlink satellite falls to Earth, burns up as stunning fireball over US (video).” Space. 11 Nov 2024.

Trela, Nate. “Starlink satellite destruction routine maneuver, note election fraud cover-up | Fact check.” USA Today. 14 Nov 2024.

NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. “Starlink 4682.” Accessed 17 Nov 2024.

Czopek, Madison, and Sara Swann. “No, Elon Musk’s Starlink wasn’t used to rig the 2024 presidential election for Donald Trump.” PolitiFact. 12 Nov 2024.

Annenberg Classroom. “Ticket Splitting.” Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. 15 Nov 2024.

Elections Research Center. “Faculty.” Accessed 15 Nov 2024.

Fichera, Angelo. “Faulty Claim About ‘Biden-Only’ Ballot in Georgia.” FactCheck.org. 12 Nov 2020.

Conley, Cait. Senior advisor, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Email to FactCheck.org. 12 Nov 2024.

Allen, Ted. Associate professor of integrated systems engineering, The Ohio State University. Email to FactCheck.org. 17 Nov 2024.

Wisconsin Elections Commission. Spokesperson. Email to FactCheck.org. 15 Nov 2024.

Office of Georgia Secretary of State. Spokesperson. Email to FactCheck.org. 15 Nov 2024.

Gannon, Patrick. Spokesperson, North Carolina State Board of Elections. Email to FactCheck.org. 15 Nov 2024.

The post Musk’s Starlink Was Not Connected to Vote Tabulation, Contrary to Online Claims appeared first on FactCheck.org.

This post was originally published on FactCheck.org.

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Quick Take

Vice President Kamala Harris received many celebrity endorsements leading up to the election, including from Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey, Eminem, Megan Thee Stallion and Lizzo. Social media posts have made the unfounded claim that these celebrities were collectively paid $20 million for their endorsements. We’ve found no evidence to support the claim.

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Full Story

In the months leading up to the election, Vice President Kamala Harris received several high-profile celebrity endorsements.

In July, rapper Megan Thee Stallion appeared with Harris at a rally in Atlanta.

Television host Oprah Winfrey spoke at the Democratic National Convention in August, where she endorsed Harris for president: “What we’re going to do is elect Kamala Harris as the next President of the United States,” Winfrey said.

In October, rappers Eminem and Lizzo both spoke at rallies for the vice president in Detroit.

Singer-songwriter Beyoncé endorsed Harris later that month at a rally in Houston.

Social media users have claimed, without any evidence, that these celebrities were collectively paid around $20 million for their endorsements.

We previously wrote about the unfounded claim that Beyoncé was paid $10 million, which a Harris campaign official said “is not true.” Now, posts are claiming others were paid millions.

A Nov. 12 Instagram post shared a clip from Fox News, in which anchor Harris Faulkner claimed that Beyoncé received $10 million from the Harris campaign for her endorsement, Megan Thee Stallion received $5 million, Lizzo received $3 million and Eminem received $1.8 million.

In a caption, the user claimed that Oprah received $1 million for her endorsement.

“Is that normally how it goes — you spend $20 million, you get yourself in debt to try to get a bunch of rich celebrities on stage?” Faulkner asks in the clip, referencing a claim from a Democratic National Committee member that the Harris campaign ended this election cycle with $20 million in debt.

Federal Election Commission records for the Harris campaign are only available through Oct. 16 and show no debts are owed. Unnamed sources close to the campaign told NBC News that some debt has been accrued.

Former professional basketball player Rod Benson shared the claim on Threads, writing, “We donated $1B to the Kamala campaign and a few days later they ask for more money cause they ended up with $20M in debt paying for celebrity endorsements.”

In a separate post, Benson added: “They paid Oprah $1M to endorse the campaign.”

Other users shared the same or similar numbers.

We’ve found no evidence to support the claim that these celebrities were paid anything in exchange for their endorsements.

As we’ve written, political campaigns are required to publicly disclose any paid endorsements. But the Harris campaign, through Oct. 16, lists only one endorsement-related expenditure — for $75 — in its FEC financial reports. It was made to the League of Conservation Voters Action Fund, a pro-environment political action committee, in June 2023, when President Joe Biden was still running for reelection.

The Harris campaign did make two payments totaling $1 million to Harpo Productions Inc., Oprah Winfrey’s production company, on Oct. 15, for “event production.” Winfrey said in an Instagram comment that she was “not paid a dime” and that the payments went toward production fees for her interview with Harris in September. “I did not take any personal fee. However the people who worked on that production needed to be paid. And were. End of story,” Winfrey wrote.

We found no record of Harris’ campaign paying Beyoncé, Eminem, Megan Thee Stallion, Lizzo, or their production companies, anything.

We asked the Harris campaign about these claims regarding the endorsements, but we haven’t received a response.

Claims about paid celebrity endorsements have been circulating in the weeks leading up to and following the election. On Nov. 14, rapper Cardi B responded on X to the claim that she was paid for her endorsement of Harris, writing, “I didn’t get paid a dollar.”

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Breuninger, Kevin. “Oprah Winfrey endorses Kamala Harris, saying she represents ‘the best of America.’” CNBC. 21 Aug 2024.

Cappelletti, Joey. “At Detroit Rally for Kamala Harris, Eminem Endorses and Obama Reps.” Time. 23 Oct 2024.

Epstein, Reid J., et al. “Beyoncé Rallies for Harris in Houston With a Message for the Battlegrounds.” New York Times. 26 Oct 2024.

Gore, D’Angelo. “League of Conservation Voters.” FactCheck.org. 5 Sep 2024.

Korecki, Natasha. “Clashes, confusion and secrecy consume the Harris campaign’s finances.” NBC. 14 Nov 2024.

Levy, Piet, and Jay Stahl. “Cardi B supports Kamala Harris at campaign rally in Wisconsin: ‘Ready to make history?‘” USA Today. 2 Nov 2024.

Moorman, Taijuan, and KiMi Robinson. “Megan Thee Stallion performs ‘Savage’ at Kamala Harris rally: ‘Hotties for Harris.’” USA Today. 30 Jul 2024.

Nicholas, Peter, and Dareh Gregorian. “President Joe Biden drops out of 2024 presidential race.” NBC. 21 Jul 2024.

Nichols, Anna Liz. “‘It’s about damn time’ to elect Harris as president, Lizzo says.” Alabama Reflector. 20 Oct 2024.

Vakil, Caroline. “DNC critic sparks discussions about what went wrong for Harris.” The Hill. 13 Nov 2024.

Zinsner, Hadleigh. “Posts Make Unfounded Claim About Beyoncé’s Endorsement of Harris.” FactCheck.org. 31 Oct 2024.

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Quick Take

Some social media posts falsely claimed that CBS News reported there was “cheating” in the 2024 presidential election that benefitted President-elect Donald Trump. We found no evidence of such a report, and a CBS News spokesperson said the outlet “did not report or say there was cheating in the election.”

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Full Story

The 2024 presidential election was called for Donald Trump on Nov. 6, with the president-elect winning 312 electoral votes and Vice President Kamala Harris receiving 226. The elections also saw Republicans regain control of the Senate and likely keep control of the House of Representatives, although several congressional districts have yet to be decided as of Nov. 12.

But social media posts, falsely citing CBS News, have made unfounded claims that the presidential election outcome may have been the result of cheating. 

A Nov. 10 post on Threads claimed, “CBS is reporting cheating in the election. If the accusations are true. There could be a recount. This will change everything. Let’s cross our fingers!”

A similar post on X on Nov. 6 said, “CBS News is currently accusing Donald Trump of cheating his victory over the 2024 Presidential Election.” As of Nov. 11, the post was viewed 2.7 million times and received 43,000 likes, according to the platform. 

We couldn’t find any stories posted by CBS News on its website, X account, or its Threads account that reported cheating during the elections. 

CBS News spokesperson Hugo Rojo told us in an emailed statement, “CBS News did not report or say there was cheating in the election.”

While there was no evidence of cheating, there was a considerable amount of disinformation before, during and after the elections. 

CBS News reported on Nov. 5, Election Day, that the FBI warned of fabricated videos using the agency’s name and insignia, including one that alleged voter fraud at prisons in three swing states. “The videos were likely created by the same Russian disinformation group that released two additional fabricated FBI videos in recent days, according to Antibot4Navalny, a collective of researchers that tracks online Russian disinformation,” CBS News reported.

Trump has repeatedly made baseless, false and misleading claims that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged,” citing conspiracies involving the Department of Justice, Dominion Voting Systems and local election officials, among others. State and federal judges repeatedly rejected Trump’s claims, saying the Trump legal team provided no evidence of fraud. 

On Election Day this year, while the polls were still open, Trump once again posted unfounded claims on social media about “massive CHEATING” in Philadelphia, adding “Law Enforcement coming!!!” As we wrote, city and state officials, including the Philadelphia district attorney, city commissioner and the Pennsylvania Department of State, denied any allegations of election impropriety. The Philadelphia Police Department also told CNN they were not aware of any election-related issues that had prompted a law enforcement response. 

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Associated Press. “2024 Presidential Election Results.” Accessed 11 Nov 2024. 

CBS News. “Homepage.” Accessed 11 Nov 2024. 

Rojo, Hugo, Spokesperson, CBS News. Email to FactCheck.org. 11 Nov 2024. 

Delzer, Erielle and Kerry Breen. “FBI warns that fake videos using its name, insignia are spreading election misinformation.” CBS News. 5 Nov 2024. 

FBI. Press release. “FBI Statement on Inauthentic Use of Bureau Name, Insignia in Promoting False Election-Related Narratives.” 5 Nov 2024.

@antibot4navalny. “None of the fake videos published by Matryoshka after the poll stations got closed were made with an assumption that any particular candidate won… Moreover, most were still seeking to target the voting… And all of them either used FBI branding or falsely quoted FBI as saying.” X. 6 Nov 2024. 

McLean, Danielle. “Post Misrepresents Impact of Voter Registrations Delivered to Maricopa County.” 15 Oct 2024. 

Quinn, Melissa. “These 14 House seats are still undecided, with 2024 results outstanding a week after Election Day.” CBS News. 12 Nov 2024.

Robertson, Lori, et al. “Trump Repeats Baseless, False Claims About the Election.” FactCheck.org. 1 Dec 2020. 

Farley, Robert. “Trump Makes Unsupported Claim About ‘Massive CHEATING’ in Philadelphia.” FactCheck.org. 5 Nov 2024. 

Lybrand, Holmes, et al. “Philadelphia authorities shut down claims of “massive CHEATING” Trump referenced in Truth Social post.” CNN. 5 Nov 2024. 

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Quick Take

Ballots were still being counted in the days following the 2024 election, but a claim that there was a suspicious gap of 15 million to 20 million votes as compared with the 2020 election has been circulating on social media. There is no such large gap — states were still counting their ballots — and even if there are fewer votes for the Democratic candidate than there were four years ago, that doesn’t prove fraud.

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Full Story

President-elect Donald Trump has a history of making false claims about voter fraud. After he lost the 2020 election, Trump falsely blamed it on fraud, and he and his supporters have continued to spread those claims for years.

When returns in 2024 began to clearly favor Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris, though, posts making claims about voter fraud slowed, and accounts that had previously boosted the narrative that U.S. elections were beset with fraud quickly embraced the outcome.

But social media posts are now using incomplete vote counts for the 2024 election to continue to claim that the 2020 election was fraudulent, while other, left-leaning accounts are posting similarly inaccurate claims suggesting that “missing” votes indicate fraud in this election.

Early in the morning following Election Day, conservative influencer Benny Johnson posted on X, “Weird how +20 million Democrats just disappeared in a single election from 2020 to 2024[.] Super duper strange man[.] Joe Biden got 81 million votes Kamala got 60? Very Sus.”

Four hours later, at about 8 a.m. on Nov. 6, ZeroHedge — a website that has a history of spreading misinformation — posted on X a graph that appeared to show about 15 million more votes for the Democratic candidate in 2020 compared with the 2012, 2016 and 2024 elections.

Another popular account called “DC_Draino,” which is run by the conservative influencer Rogan O’Handley, posted the graph on Instagram later that day with this comment: “Boy did they pull a LOT of shenanigans in 2020. Thankfully we cleaned up our elections just enough to stop the steal in 2024.”

O’Handley later followed up on that claim and posted side-by-side maps of California’s results by county in 2020 and 2024, suggesting that the maps indicated fraud, writing, “I think we found where some of those 16 million mystery Biden ballots were being laundered.” 

Those on the other side of the political spectrum appear to be circulating a different fraud claim, saying things such as, “people that voted by mail are doing the Track My Vote thing, all 20 million that voted D that have reported so far say they were told they didn’t vote. Including my cousin and sister. Two different states. 20 million missing Democrat votes and Kamala is going to call trump at 4 pm today to concede?”

But, really, there’s nothing nefarious going on. It’s just that not all of the ballots have been counted yet.

In 2012, Barack Obama won both the electoral and popular votes, receiving 66 million votes to Mitt Romney’s 61 million.

In 2016, Trump won the electoral college but lost the popular vote, receiving 63 million votes to Hillary Clinton’s 66 million.

In 2020, which had record-high turnout, Biden won both the electoral and popular votes, receiving 81 million votes to Trump’s 74 million.

In 2024, not all the ballots have been counted yet.

The morning after the election, Johnson had said that Harris got 60 million votes. But the total was 72.4 million for Harris as of the morning of Nov. 13, according to the Associated Press’ tally, which showed that all but two states have yet to count all of the ballots. 

California, which O’Handley highlighted in his Nov. 7 post, still had millions of votes left to count on that day. On Nov. 8, as of about 5 p.m., the California secretary of state’s office estimated there were about 5 million ballots left to process. There were still an estimated 2.1 million votes uncounted in California, as of Nov. 13.

California, where some races for the House of Representatives haven’t yet been called a week after the election, takes a long time to count ballots. The New York Times explained in a Nov. 11 story that the state deals with a lot of mail-in ballots, which are sent to every active, registered voter and take longer to process than in-person votes. California also accepts ballots up to seven days after Election Day as long as they are postmarked by Election Day.

It’s also worth noting that Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said in a statement on Nov. 6 that in this election “we have no evidence of any malicious activity that had a material impact on the security or integrity of our election infrastructure.”

“Now,” she said, “election officials will carry out their duty to certify the results and ensure that every eligible vote has been counted as cast.”

After all the votes have been counted, it’s possible that more ballots were cast in 2020, and it’s likely that Harris will garner fewer votes than President Joe Biden did four years ago. But that’s not evidence of fraud; in fact, it’s happened before. In 1988, George H.W. Bush received nearly 49 million votes, which was 5.6 million fewer than his Republican predecessor, Ronald Reagan, won in 1984. And in 2012 Barack Obama brought in about 66 million votes, which was 3.6 million fewer than he received in 2008.

So, the bottom line is that comparing early vote counts to 2020 vote totals doesn’t prove that there was any kind of fraud in that election or in this one.

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Farley, Robert. “Trump’s Bogus Voter Fraud Claims Revisited.” FactCheck.org. 25 Jan 2017.

Wendling, Mike. “Whirlwind of misinformation sows distrust ahead of US election day.” BBC. 3 Nov 2024.

Durkee, Alison. “Trump’s Pennsylvania Fraud Claims Debunked: Overseas Voter Challenges Latest Claims Spreading In Battleground State.” Forbes. 4 Nov 2024.

Yoon, Robert. “Trump’s drumbeat of lies about the 2020 election keeps getting louder. Here are the facts.” Associated Press. 27 Aug 2023.

Thompson, Stuart A., Jim Rutenberg and Steven Lee Myers. “After Trump Took the Lead, Election Deniers Went Suddenly Silent.” New York Times. 6 Nov 2024.

Federal Election Commission. Federal Elections 2012. Jul 2013.

Federal Election Commission. Federal Elections 2016. Dec 2017.

Federal Election Commission. Federal Elections 2020. Oct 2022.

U.S. Census Bureau. Record High Turnout in 2020 General Election. 29 Apr 2021.

University of Florida. Election Lab. 2024 General Election Turnout. 7 Nov 2024.

Associated Press. 2024 Presidential Election Results. 12 Nov 2024.

California Secretary of State. Unprocessed Ballots Status. 11 Nov 2024.

Karlamangla, Soumya, Orlando Mayorquín and Coral Murphy Marcos. “California Counts Methodically as House Control Hangs in the Balance.” New York Times. 11 Nov 2024.

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The post Both Sides Distort Incomplete Vote Counts to Falsely Suggest Election Fraud appeared first on FactCheck.org.

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Quick Take

Social media users alleged bias against former President Donald Trump when a Google search on Election Day for “where to vote” returned an interactive map to find a person’s polling station when including the word “Harris” but not “Trump.” The reason is because “Harris” is a county in Texas, whereas “Trump” is not a location.

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Full Story

As millions of Americans were headed to the polls to cast their ballots on Nov. 5, social media accounts were falsely claiming Google was trying to interfere with the election by providing different search results for Vice President Kamala Harris than it did for Trump.

In late October, the company had rolled out a map search result feature, as it had in previous years, to provide voters with locations when they searched for terms such as “where to vote” or “ballot dropboxes.”

It turned out the interactive map, allowing a person to put in their address, also appeared when querying “where can I vote for Harris,” but not when searching “where can I vote for Trump.”

Several social media accounts jumped to the conclusion that the differing search results were an effort by the tech behemoth to swing the election.

“BREAKING: Google shows a ‘Where to Vote’ section with a map for Kamala Harris, but not for Donald Trump,” wrote one influential post on X. “Google is the biggest corporate donor to the Democratic Party.”

X owner Elon Musk, a prominent supporter of Trump, reshared the post, asking, “Are others seeing this too?” He proceeded to post about it two more times within about 30 minutes, including a now-deleted post that read, “This is so messed up.”

But the discrepancy came down to the simple fact that only one candidate has a location-based name. Harris is a county in Texas; Trump is not a location.

Indeed, while we could replicate the results, we also found that we did not get the map result when adding Harris’ first name. We also found that the map appeared when adding a variety of common names that happen to be places: Jones, Davis, Williams, Franklin and Johnson — or when keeping the search terms simple, and just typing “where can I vote.”

Less than an hour after Musk’s reshare, Google had responded and explained the issue.

“The ‘where to vote’ panel is triggering for some specific searches bc Harris is also the name of a county in TX,” the company said in an X post. “Happens for ‘Vance’ too bc it’s also the name of a county. Fix is coming. Note very few people actually search for voting places this way.”

Vance County is in North Carolina.

Google implemented a fix shortly. According to a company blog post, the map search result feature uses information from the Voting Information Project, which is a collaboration between state and local election officials and Democracy Works, a nonpartisan civic technology nonprofit. Google helps fund the project.

As for the claim that Google is “the biggest corporate donor” to Democrats, the company itself can’t contribute money to candidates. Its political action committee contributed a slightly greater percentage of its donations to Republicans in this election cycle, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks political contributions. Individual contributions from the employees of Google parent company Alphabet favored Democrats overall, but the total amount donated ranked 49^th among the organizations OpenSecrets tracks. 

Musk did reshare Google’s post, adding, “Thanks for the clarification.” A reader’s note was also appended to the original post he had shared. It explained that a variety of location names work, but not “if there is no city / county / state with the same name,” such as Kamala, Trump and Walz.

But even after the explanation, claims of election interference continued to circulate — and proceeded to distort Google’s response into an admission of wrongdoing.

“Google admits to Trump and Harris search engine discrepancy, says ‘fix is coming,’” read one X post. “This is ABSOLUTELY INTERFERING WITH THE US ELECTION.”

In the wee hours of the morning the day after the election — shortly before the Associated Press called the race for Trump — the same account continued to insist on malfeasance.

“Guess what happens to Google once the Trump administration investigates them for election interference?” a post read.

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

Sources

Kitchen, Geordy. “Find voting information on Google Search and Maps.” The Keyword (Google company blog). 21 Oct 2024.

News from Google (@NewsFromGoogle). “The ‘where to vote’ panel is triggering for some specific searches bc Harris is also the name of a county in TX. Happens for ‘Vance’ too bc it’s also the name of a county. Fix is coming. Note very few people actually search for voting places this way.” X. 5 Nov 2024.

News from Google (@NewsFromGoogle). “Update: This is now fixed.” X. 5 Nov 2024.

“PAC Profile: Google Inc.” Open Secrets. Accessed 6 Nov 2024.

“Alphabet Inc.” Open Secrets. Accessed 6 Nov 2024.

Yoon, Robert. “Why AP called Wisconsin and the White House for Donald Trump.” AP. 6 Nov 2024.

The post Google’s ‘Where to Vote’ Search Result Reflects Quirk of Candidate Surname, Not Bias appeared first on FactCheck.org.

This post was originally published on FactCheck.org.

Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino.

Quick Take

Social media users alleged bias against former President Donald Trump when a Google search on Election Day for “where to vote” returned an interactive map to find a person’s polling station when including the word “Harris” but not “Trump.” The reason is because “Harris” is a county in Texas, whereas “Trump” is not a location.

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Full Story

As millions of Americans were headed to the polls to cast their ballots on Nov. 5, social media accounts were falsely claiming Google was trying to interfere with the election by providing different search results for Vice President Kamala Harris than it did for Trump.

In late October, the company had rolled out a map search result feature, as it had in previous years, to provide voters with locations when they searched for terms such as “where to vote” or “ballot dropboxes.”

It turned out the interactive map, allowing a person to put in their address, also appeared when querying “where can I vote for Harris,” but not when searching “where can I vote for Trump.”

Several social media accounts jumped to the conclusion that the differing search results were an effort by the tech behemoth to swing the election.

“BREAKING: Google shows a ‘Where to Vote’ section with a map for Kamala Harris, but not for Donald Trump,” wrote one influential post on X. “Google is the biggest corporate donor to the Democratic Party.”

X owner Elon Musk, a prominent supporter of Trump, reshared the post, asking, “Are others seeing this too?” He proceeded to post about it two more times within about 30 minutes, including a now-deleted post that read, “This is so messed up.”

But the discrepancy came down to the simple fact that only one candidate has a location-based name. Harris is a county in Texas; Trump is not a location.

Indeed, while we could replicate the results, we also found that we did not get the map result when adding Harris’ first name. We also found that the map appeared when adding a variety of common names that happen to be places: Jones, Davis, Williams, Franklin and Johnson — or when keeping the search terms simple, and just typing “where can I vote.”

Less than an hour after Musk’s reshare, Google had responded and explained the issue.

“The ‘where to vote’ panel is triggering for some specific searches bc Harris is also the name of a county in TX,” the company said in an X post. “Happens for ‘Vance’ too bc it’s also the name of a county. Fix is coming. Note very few people actually search for voting places this way.”

Vance County is in North Carolina.

Google implemented a fix shortly. According to a company blog post, the map search result feature uses information from the Voting Information Project, which is a collaboration between state and local election officials and Democracy Works, a nonpartisan civic technology nonprofit. Google helps fund the project.

As for the claim that Google is “the biggest corporate donor” to Democrats, the company itself can’t contribute money to candidates. Its political action committee contributed a slightly greater percentage of its donations to Republicans in this election cycle, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks political contributions. Individual contributions from the employees of Google parent company Alphabet favored Democrats overall, but the total amount donated ranked 49^th among the organizations OpenSecrets tracks. 

Musk did reshare Google’s post, adding, “Thanks for the clarification.” A reader’s note was also appended to the original post he had shared. It explained that a variety of location names work, but not “if there is no city / county / state with the same name,” such as Kamala, Trump and Walz.

But even after the explanation, claims of election interference continued to circulate — and proceeded to distort Google’s response into an admission of wrongdoing.

“Google admits to Trump and Harris search engine discrepancy, says ‘fix is coming,’” read one X post. “This is ABSOLUTELY INTERFERING WITH THE US ELECTION.”

In the wee hours of the morning the day after the election — shortly before the Associated Press called the race for Trump — the same account continued to insist on malfeasance.

“Guess what happens to Google once the Trump administration investigates them for election interference?” a post read.

---

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give by check, send to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, 202 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104. 

Sources

Kitchen, Geordy. “Find voting information on Google Search and Maps.” The Keyword (Google company blog). 21 Oct 2024.

News from Google (@NewsFromGoogle). “The ‘where to vote’ panel is triggering for some specific searches bc Harris is also the name of a county in TX. Happens for ‘Vance’ too bc it’s also the name of a county. Fix is coming. Note very few people actually search for voting places this way.” X. 5 Nov 2024.

News from Google (@NewsFromGoogle). “Update: This is now fixed.” X. 5 Nov 2024.

“PAC Profile: Google Inc.” Open Secrets. Accessed 6 Nov 2024.

“Alphabet Inc.” Open Secrets. Accessed 6 Nov 2024.

Yoon, Robert. “Why AP called Wisconsin and the White House for Donald Trump.” AP. 6 Nov 2024.

The post Google’s ‘Where to Vote’ Search Result Reflects Quirk of Candidate Surname, Not Bias appeared first on FactCheck.org.

This post was originally published on FactCheck.org.

Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino.

Quick Take

Posts shared on Facebook make an unfounded claim of racially motivated threats of violence in Gwinnett County, Georgia, “from now until the Inauguration.” The county sheriff’s office said it had “not received any information indicating threats to any group(s) on or after election day.”

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Full Story

The 2024 election season has seen a rash of political violence. There were two assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump, one of which resulted in the death of a campaign rally attendee. An office used by Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign team in Tempe, Arizona, was damaged by gunfire three times. Law enforcement officials also have seen a wave of threats against poll workers and political activists ahead of Election Day, the New York Times reported. 

Amid that atmosphere of violence and threats of violence, a chain of Facebook posts — citing an unnamed deputy in the Gwinnett County, Georgia, sheriff’s office — spread an unfounded claim of threats against Black women in Georgia.

The Facebook user who shared the post on Nov. 1 wrote, in part: “‘Hey ladies, I just received this from a friend who works in the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s office!!! Be on Alert… Last night, a deputy told a family that local White Supremacists/ KKK members originating out of Lexington, NC, are planning to attack from now until the Inauguration. They are plotting against Blacks, especially black women because in their eyes, we are easy targets! Please be vigilant! Try not to do anything alone, especially after dark! This is not a hoax or a rumor! The deputy showed paperwork that the police department has.”

Similar text was shared by other users on Facebook.

But the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office said on its Facebook page on Nov. 2 that it has not received any information on such threats.

“The Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office has been made aware of a circulating text thread suggesting potential attacks on African American women ‘from now through the inauguration.’ We have not received any information indicating threats to any group(s) on or after election day,” the sheriff’s office said.

“Hateful discourse such as this aims to instill fear in the community and disrupt us from exercising our constitutional rights. The Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office remains dedicated to protecting all citizens and we will continue to monitor and respond accordingly to all suspicious and threatening behavior.”

The sheriff’s office also said it is working with “local, state, and federal authorities to stay current on any potential threats surrounding the general election,” and it directed reports of threats to local law enforcement or the tip line, 770-619-6655.

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Farrow, Fritz. “Harris campaign office in Arizona shot at for third time in a month, police say.” ABC News. 9 Oct 2024. 

Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office. Facebook post. 2 Nov 2024. 

McLean, Danielle. “Posts Misrepresent Police Reports Preceding Trump Rally in New York.” FactCheck.org. Updated 26 Sep 2024.

Thrush, Glenn, Adam Goldman, Alan Feuer and Eileen Sullivan. “Election Officials Face Torrent of Threats as Nov. 5 Looms.” New York Times. 25 Oct 2024.

Parker, Ned and Peter Eisler. “New cases of political violence roil U.S. ahead of contentious election.” Reuters. 21 Oct 2024.

The post Posts Spread Unfounded Claim of Race-Based Threat of Violence in Georgia appeared first on FactCheck.org.

This post was originally published on FactCheck.org.

Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino.

Quick Take

A misspelling of former President Donald Trump’s name occurred on an optional ballot review screen in Virginia, prompting an unfounded claim on social media of “election fraud.” The error was a typo that appeared only on the ballot review screen, not on actual ballots, and would not affect any votes, election officials said.

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Full Story

Virginia’s voting process includes an optional ballot review screen, which is designed to display a voter’s selections before a ballot is cast. The optional screen helps voters verify their choices and correct any errors.

But a video shared on social media that shows a misspelling on a ballot review screen has raised unfounded allegations of voter fraud in Virginia’s Washington County.

An Oct. 29 post on Instagram shows a video with former President Donald Trump’s name misspelled as “Triump” on a ballot review screen. The accompanying text claims, “This was a voter in Virginia 4 days ago. Why is there an I in Donald J Trump’s name?”

The X account RealAF Patriot shared the video with a message that read, “ELECTION FRAUD IN VIRGINIA!? A voter shows that they have Trump spelled incorrectly as Triump. Is that so votes won’t register for Trump?” The post received more than 3 million views, according to the platform.

Andrea M. Gaines, a spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Elections, told us in an email that the misspelling of Trump’s name occurred on equipment in Washington County. “We cannot confirm the origin of the video,” she said.

But Gaines said the “review screen does not affect tabulation of ballots or reporting of results.”

Derek N. Lyall, director of elections and general registrar for Washington County, told us in an email, “All Washington County voters cast their votes on paper ballots. The names of all candidates are spelled properly on the paper ballots.”

Lyall explained that the misspelling was a typographical error on the optional ballot review screen, which only activates if a voter specifically requests it before inserting a ballot. “Out of 10,000+ voters who have cast their ballots in Washington County, fewer than twenty voters have requested to utilize this optional ballot review screen,” he noted.

Lyall said the error was discovered too late to reprogram the voting equipment for the election. However, he said all voting equipment had been thoroughly tested and was operating as intended. “Our equipment is operating as designed and is tabulating ballots in accordance with voters’ choices. The single typographical error on the optional ballot review screen will have no effect on anyone’s vote,” he said.

Lyall also said a notice would be posted in every polling place advising voters of this error on Election Day.

Virginia has voted for a Democrat in the last four presidential elections. In 2020, Trump lost the state by 10 percentage points, but overwhelmingly won Washington County with 75.6% of the vote.

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

270 to Win. “Virginia: Recent Presidential Elections.” Accessed 5 Nov 2024.

Murphy, Joe. “Two charts and a map to help make sense of all the early voting data.” NBC News. 4 Nov 2024.

Gaines, Andrea. External affairs manager, Virginia Department of Elections. Email to FactCheck.org. 4 Nov 2024.

Lyall, Derek N. Director of elections and general registrar, Washington County, Virginia. Email to FactCheck.org. 4 Nov 2024.

Virginia Public Access Project. “Early Voting in Virginia.” Accessed 5 Nov 2024.

The post Typo in Trump’s Name on Ballot Review Screen Is Not ‘Election Fraud’ appeared first on FactCheck.org.

This post was originally published on FactCheck.org.

Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino.

Quick Take

A video showing a Laurel County, Kentucky, voter having difficulty marking a ballot for former President Donald Trump was investigated and found to be an “isolated incident” of “voter error,” a spokesperson for the secretary of state said. Social media posts baselessly claimed it was an example of “election interference.”

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Full Story

Throughout his 2024 election bid, former President Donald Trump has baselessly questioned the integrity of U.S. elections. There is no evidence that Trump’s defeat in 2020 was due to fraud or cheating, as we have written. State and federal judges have rejected Trump’s claims, often saying that his legal team provided no evidence of fraud. Election security officials at the time called the 2020 election “the most secure in American history.”

But bogus claims of 2024 election interference persisted as voters across the country began to cast their ballots.

In a series of posts on Instagram, users falsely characterize a viral video as evidence of pervasive fraud. The video depicts a voter in Laurel County, Kentucky, repeatedly attempting to select the Republican presidential ticket, Trump and Sen. JD Vance, but the ballot marking device instead indicates a vote for the Democratic ticket of Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz.

One post misleadingly reported, “BREAKING: Voter machines in Kentucky are automatically selecting ‘Harris-Walz’ despite voter’s NUMEROUS attempts to select ‘Trump-Vance.’”

“Share this and tag every representative you can think of. This is election interference at its finest and that’s a CRIME,” another post claimed. 

A third post baselessly described the video as an example of more extensive interference nationwide: “People in the comments all over the country are saying the same thing happened to them. How many people did not notice and moved on to their next selection?”

Local and state officials mounted a rapid response to the Oct. 31 incident, which the Laurel County voter reported to election officials at her polling location.​​

Michon Lindstrom, a spokesperson for Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams, told us in an email that this was an “isolated incident” of “voter error,” not evidence of election interference. Adams is a Republican who won reelection last year.

“The ballot marking device was removed and the Attorney General’s office is looking at the machine out of an abundance of caution,” Lindstrom said.

The Laurel County voter responsible for the video ultimately deposited a ballot containing her desired selections, the State Board of Elections said in a Nov. 1 statement.

More than 1,700 people in Laurel County participated in in-person absentee voting on Oct. 31, and “neither the State Board of Elections nor the Laurel County Clerk were made aware of any other reports of issues with the county’s [ballot marking devices and scanners] on that day,” the board said in its statement.

“According to statements made by the voter to the County Clerk, the voter was able to ultimately use the touchscreen correctly to highlight the field for Donald Trump and every other one of her preferred candidates,” the board also said.

Device Allows for Reviewing Selections

The device featured in the video was an Election Systems & Software (ES&S) ExpressVote ballot marking device, or BMD. The device does not electronically tabulate votes. Instead, voters must make selections for each race on the BMD screen, print their completed ballots, then insert their ballots into an ES&S DS-200 scanner to formally record their selections.

Laurel County Clerk Tony Brown explained in an Oct. 31 Facebook post, “You insert your blank ballot into [the BMD]. … It shows you who you have chosen for each race and notifies you if you didn’t make a selection in a race before it allows the voter to continue to the next page. When you come to the end of the ballot it shows you how you voted in every race and issue. It confirms with each voter that they are satisfied with their selections twice before printing the ballot.” 

“Once you receive your ballot back from the ballot marking device you can review your choices again before placing it into the scanner,” Brown continued. “If you made a mistake, you may spoil that ballot and receive another one[.] Kentucky Law allows two spoiled ballots only. Once you are satisfied with your ballot you may place it into the scanner, and it verifies that it has been counted.”

Upon receiving news of the Oct. 31 incident, the BMD was “set face down” in the vote center until a representative of the Kentucky attorney general’s office arrived, Brown reported on Facebook.

“After several minutes of attempting to recreate the scenario [in the video], it did occur,” Brown wrote. “This was accomplished by hitting some area in between the boxes. After that we tried for several minutes to do it again and could not.” Investigators used the same BMD from the video when attempting to recreate the scenario. 

Brown posted an additional video to Facebook on Nov. 1 with tips to successfully navigate Laurel County BMDs. The State Board of Elections recommends that voters use a finger or stylus to make selections “within the middle of the field allocated for that candidate or response.” 

Voters in Kentucky can report ballot issues to the election officials at their polling location and then call the attorney general’s election hotline, 1-800-328-VOTE.

Lindstrom, the secretary of state spokesperson, said Kentucky conducts post-election audits, which involve hand recounts of ballots.

“All Kentucky voters can have confidence that our elections are secure and any potential issues will be addressed quickly,” Attorney General Russell Coleman, a Republican, said on X. 

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Farley, Robert, et al. “Donald Trump’s Closing Arguments.” FactCheck.org. 31 Oct 2024.

Kiely, Eugene, et al. “Final Night of the GOP Convention.” FactCheck.org. 19 July 2024.

Kiely, Eugene, et al. “The Facts on Trump’s Post-Election Legal Challenges.” FactCheck.org. 2 Dec 2020.

Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency. “Joint Statement from Elections Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council & the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Executive Committees.” Press release. 12 Nov 2020.

Afreen, Uzma. “Trump, Vance Opted Out of Oregon’s Voter Guide, Contrary to Online Claims of ‘Voter Fraud’.” FactCheck.org. 29 Oct 2024.

Keefe, Eliza. “Dominion Voting Systems Will Operate in Florida, Contrary to Online Claims.” FactCheck.org. 25 Oct 2024.

Farley, Robert. “Trump’s Latest Bogus Claim About Mail-In Vote Fraud in Pennsylvania.” FactCheck.org. 20 Sep 2024.

Collins, Keith, and Josh Williams. “Early Voting Has Started. Here’s What to Watch.” New York Times. 2 Nov 2024.

Laurel County Clerk. “Elections.” Accessed 3 Nov 2024.

Commonwealth of Kentucky State Board of Elections. “State Board of Elections Statement Regarding Laurel County Viral Video.” Press release. Accessed 2 Nov 2024.

NBC News. “Kentucky Secretary of State Election Results 2023: Michael Adams Wins.” 7 Nov 2023.

Kilburn, Brandon. “Commonwealth of Kentucky County Election Planning Report.” 3 Jul 2024.

Commonwealth of Kentucky State Board of Elections. “County Election Plans.” Accessed 2 Nov 2024.

Election Systems & Software. “ExpressVote.” Accessed 2 Nov 2024.

Election Systems & Software. “DS200.” Accessed 2 Nov 2024.

Tony Brown, Laurel County Clerk. “The Attorney General’s office has been to the vote center to check the device.” Facebook. 31 Oct 2024.

Attorney General Russell Coleman (@kyoag). “Kentucky Attorney General’s Department of Criminal Investigations Quickly Responded to Complaint from Laurel County.” X. 31 Oct 2024.

Tony Brown, Laurel County Clerk. “Here is how the ballot Marking Device works.” Facebook. 1 Nov 2024.

Kentucky General Assembly. Title 031. Chapter 004. Regulation 230REG. Accessed 4 Nov 2024.

Attorney General Russell Coleman (@kyoag). “Our elections are secure.” X. 31 Oct 2024.

The post Video Shows ‘Voter Error,’ Not ‘Election Interference’ in Kentucky appeared first on FactCheck.org.

This post was originally published on FactCheck.org.

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Quick Take

A conservative dark money group has fabricated a website and digital ad campaign that purport to share — but often distort — policies supported by Vice President Kamala Harris. As the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris has not proposed a gun buyback program or Medicare coverage for immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, contrary to the conservative group’s ads.

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Full Story

A conservative dark money group has created a bogus website, as well as a social media and ad campaign, called Progress 2028 that, on its surface, appears to be led by Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign or allies. But Harris has not proposed most of the policies the website lays out, though she did support some of the policies in the past. Her campaign had nothing to do with the creation of Project 2028.

The top of the Progress 2028 website states: “To: Americans Ready for Progress. Re: How we build a sustainable engine of progressive change to carry us to 2028.” It purports that Harris is “leading the way” on a range of policy proposals and would implement them during her administration.

As reported by OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that follows money in politics, Building America’s Future, a conservative nonprofit, registered Progress 2028 on Sept. 23 with the Virginia State Corporation Commission. According to the New York Times, Building America’s Future has raised tens of millions of dollars that have been steered to groups and initiatives that have worked to elect former President Donald Trump for president.

Distortions of Harris’ Statements

The Progress 2028 website and ads could easily be perceived as efforts of a progressive advocacy group that supports — or even speaks on behalf of — Harris’ campaign.

Comic-like ads on Instagram include a photo of Harris with a heading that states: “Kamala’s plan to end gun violence.” The ad also includes a word bubble that says: “Under Kamala Harris’s leadership, a nationwide gun buy-back program will take dangerous weapons off our streets. Fewer guns = fewer tragedies.” At the bottom of the ad, it states: “Let’s get ready for the next phase in Kamala’s bold progressive agenda.”

The ad leaves the false impression that Harris supports a gun buyback program in her 2024 presidential campaign.

Harris did support a mandatory buyback program for so-called assault weapons as an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination during the 2020 campaign, as we’ve written. She has called for a ban on the purchase of certain semiautomatic weapons as the current Democratic nominee for president, but her campaign told us she no longer supports requiring Americans to give up guns already legally purchased. 

A similarly misleading ad on Facebook says: “Under Kamala’s leadership, undocumented immigrants will no longer be left behind when it comes to critical Medicare access.” In a word bubble next to a photo of Harris, the ad says: “Healthcare status shouldn’t depend on your immigration status. Kamala Harris will fight to expand Medicare for undocumented immigrants, ensuring a healthier America for all.”

(A different version of the Medicare ad is running on Facebook and Instagram. All of the Progress 2028 ads can be found in the Meta ad library.)

As with the anti-gun ad, Progress 2028 is referring to one of Harris’ positions from the 2020 campaign.

During an NBC News presidential primary debate in 2019, Harris raised her hand when a moderator asked the candidates if their health care plans would provide coverage for immigrants who are in the country illegally. When asked during a 2019 interview whether a proposed Medicare for All bill should cover those immigrants, Harris said she was “opposed to any policy that would deny in our country any human being from access to public safety, public education, or public health.” 

But, as we wrote in August, the Harris campaign told us she “will not push Medicare for All as President.” And, as reported by KFF Health News and PolitiFact, Harris has not stated whether she would provide subsidized or free health coverage to those living in the country illegally.

Last year, as governor of Minnesota, Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, signed legislation allowing low-income immigrants in his state who are living in the country illegally to obtain a health plan through a state program. During an Oct. 6 interview on “Fox News Sunday” about that vote, Walz said, “Well, that’s not the vice president’s position.”

Another Progress 2028 post on Facebook on Oct. 28 included an NBC News headline that reads: “Judge blocks Virginia from dropping alleged noncitizens from voter rolls.” Above it, the message says: “Did you see the news? The Biden-Harris DOJ successfully challenged Virginia’s ‘non-citizen’ voter removal program and won!,” misleadingly adding, “This ensures that no undocumented immigrant is unjustly stripped from voter rolls.”  

A U.S. District Court judge on Oct. 25 did block a Virginia program that aimed to remove alleged noncitizens from the voter rolls. But the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which sued the state, argued “eligible voters” were “wrongfully purged from the voter rolls” through the program. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Oct. 30 that Virginia could continue its removal of about 1,600 people from its voter rolls.

As we have written, a 1996 law bars noncitizens from voting in federal elections — although some jurisdictions such as San Francisco do allow noncitizens to vote in certain local elections. 

We found no evidence that Harris supports allowing undocumented immigrants to vote in federal elections.

Evidence of noncitizens voting in federal elections is extremely rare. The Bipartisan Policy Center’s review of cases compiled by the Heritage Foundation found just 77 cases between 1999 and 2023 of noncitizens voting. 

But Trump has repeatedly made false claims that the 2020 election was rigged due to voter fraud and noncitizens voting, even though his own aides, including his attorney general, told him his claims were baseless. Trump and other Republicans have continued to push the baseless claim that noncitizens will be voting in this year’s election. 

The Dark Money Group Behind the Ads

Dark money groups, such as Building America’s Future, are nonprofits created to influence political outcomes but are generally under no legal obligation to reveal the identity of the donors who fund them, as explained by OpenSecrets.

A pair of political action committees, Duty to America PAC and Future Coalition PAC, for instance, have used Building America’s Future funding to try to convince certain demographic groups, such as younger men, Muslim Americans and Black voters, to support Trump instead of Harris, the New York Times reported.

Building America’s Future has hosted speaking events for Republican candidates, including Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dave McCormick, and it hosted a roundtable on Oct. 29 in the Philadelphia suburb of Drexel Hill for Trump.

According to OpenSecrets, the Progress 2028 website appears to be created on Sept. 23 by IMGE LLC, a Washington, D.C., firm run by Republican political operatives. IMGE President Ethan Eilon, a former senior strategist for the Republican National Committee, and senior partner Phil Cox, a former executive director of the Republican Governors Association, are also leaders of Building America’s Future, the New York Times reported. 

Building America’s Future has received more than $100 million in funding from Republican donors over the past four years, the Times reported, citing people briefed on the group’s work. That includes Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has actively been stumping for Trump at campaign rallies and on social media in recent months. The billionaire has publicly highlighted the work of another conservative group, Fair Election Fund, that has received funding from Building America’s Future, the Times reported.

Building America’s Future also gave $43 million in 2022 to Citizens for Sanity, another conservative group linked to Stephen Miller, Trump’s former senior policy adviser, the Wall Street Journal reported, based on 2022 tax filings. Citizens for Sanity ran anti-Democratic ads ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. That money was given to Building America’s Future by Musk, the Wall Street Journal added, citing people familiar with the matter. According to a New York Times analysis of its tax filings, Building America’s Future raised, in total, $11 million in 2021 and $53 million in 2022.

According to OpenSecrets, Musk has also donated more than $118 million to another pro-Trump super PAC, America PAC. Since it was founded in May, America PAC has spent more than $163 million, as of Nov. 1, attacking Democrats and supporting Republicans during the run-up to the Nov. 5 election. 

America PAC also recently launched a contest that gives $1 million daily to registered voters in seven swing states who sign a petition supporting free speech and gun rights. The giveaway has been scrutinized by the Justice Department as potentially illegal, and the Philadelphia district attorney filed a lawsuit against the PAC, claiming it’s an unlawful lottery. 

We asked Building America’s Future and Progress 2028 for comment about the website and ads, but they did not respond. 

The Harris campaign would not comment on specific claims on the Progress 2028 website and digital ads, but a campaign aide told us in a statement: “Trump is so damaged by his Project 2025 agenda that he and his backers have resorted to pushing this desperate and pathetic lie to deceive voters.”

Project 2025 is a conservative policy initiative that Harris and Democrats have referred to as “Trump’s Project 2025 agenda.” But it isn’t a Trump campaign document.

The Heritage Foundation, with more than 100 other conservative organizations, created Project 2025, as we’ve written, to provide a roadmap for the next conservative president to fundamentally reshape the federal government. Some of the authors are former Cabinet secretaries under Trump, and others from the Trump administration had a role in the project.

Trump has tried to distance himself from it, saying he disagrees with the document “in many cases.”

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Project 2025. “Advisory Board.” Accessed 25 Oct 2024. 

Kiely, Eugene, D’Angelo Gore and Robert Farley. “A Guide to Project 2025.” FactCheck.org. 10 Sep 2024.

Levien, Simon J. “What to Know About JD Vance and Project 2025.” New York Times. 1 Oct 2024. 

Meckler, Laura. “GOP candidates embrace Trump’s call to abolish Education Department.” Washington Post. 24 Oct 2024.

Project 2025. “About Project 2025.” Accessed 25 Oct 2024. 

Scherer, Michael and Josh Dawsey. “Elon Musk is the October surprise of the 2024 election.” Washington Post. 29 Oct 2024.

Yang, Tia, el al. “Americans don’t like Project 2025.” ABC News. 9 Aug 2024.

Progress 2028. “To: Americans Ready for Progress… Re: How we build a sustainable engine of progressive change to carry us to 2028.” Accessed 25 Oct 2024. 

Massoglia, Anna. “Pro-Trump dark money network tied to Elon Musk behind fake pro-Harris campaign scheme.” OpenSecrets. 16 Oct 2024.

Building America’s Future. “Working to Build a Brighter Future for America.” Accessed 25 Oct 2024. 

Haberman, Maggie and Theodore Schleifer. “Republican Operatives Function as Hidden Hand Behind Pro-Trump Efforts.” 15 Oct 2024.

Building America’s Future. “America’s Future Tour.” Accessed 28 Oct 2024. 

DonaldJTrump.com. “ICYMI: Building America’s Future to Host Special Guest President Trump at Southeast Pennsylvania Roundtable.” 22 Oct 2024. 

IMGE. “Full service digital. Done right.” Accessed 28 Oct 2024. 

Ehrlich, Charlotte and Maia Cook. “Musk is placing a high bet on the presidential election.” OpenSecrets. 25 Oct 2024. 

Mattioli, Dana, Joe Palazzolo and Khadeeja Safdar. “Elon Musk Gave Tens of Millions to Republican Causes Far Earlier Than Previously Known.” Wall Street Journal. 2 Oct 2024.

Renshaw, Jarrett. “Elon Musk’s election promise of $1 million daily giveaway sparks call for probe.” Reuters. 20 Oct 2024.

Crowley, Kinsey. “Elon Musk announces more winners of $1 million giveaway after reported DOJ warning letter.” USA Today. 25 Oct 2024. 

Cohen, Marshall. “Philadelphia DA sues Elon Musk and his super PAC over $1M sweepstakes.” CNN. 28 Oct 2024. 

Kamala Harris for President. Spokesperson. Email to FactCheck.org. 25 Oct 2024. 

Chapman, Logan. “NRA Posts Misrepresent Harris’ Position on Gun Ownership.” FactCheck.org. 24 Sep 2024. 

NBC News. “Health Care For Undocumented Immigrants: Where The Candidates Stand.” 17 Jun 2019.

Armour, Stephanie. “GOP Charge That Harris Backed Taxpayer-Funded Care for All Immigrants Overlooks Details.” KFF Health News. 1 Aug 2024. 

Johnson, Chris. “Walz immigration moves sharpen election border security debate.” Roll Call. 8 Aug 2024.

Farley, Robert, et al. “FactChecking Harris’ and Trump’s Fox News Appearances.” FactCheck.org. 21 Oct 2024.

Barnes, Daniel and Rebecca Shabad. “Judge blocks Virginia from dropping alleged noncitizens from voter rolls.” NBC News. 25 Oct 2024. 

Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “Victory: Federal Court Judge Stops Virginia’s Voter Purge After State Was Sued.” 25 Oct 2024. 

VanSickle, Abbie. “Supreme Court Allows Virginia to Purge Possibly Ineligible Voters for Now.” New York Times. 30 Oct 2024.

Cardinal Brown, Theresa, Theo Menon and Feyisayo Oyolola. “Four Things to Know about Noncitizen Voting.” Bipartisan Policy Center. 13 Mar 2024. 

Heritage Foundation. “Election Fraud Cases.” Accessed 28 Oct 2024. 

Farley, Robert. “Trump’s Latest Bogus Claim About Mail-In Vote Fraud in Pennsylvania.” FactCheck.org. 20 Sep 2024. 

Charalambous, Peter. “Election fact check: Noncitizens can’t vote, and instances are ‘vanishingly rare’.” ABC News. 28 Oct 2024.  

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Quick Take

Singer-songwriter Beyoncé endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president at a campaign rally in Houston on Oct. 25. Social media posts have made the unfounded claim that Beyoncé was paid $10 million for the endorsement. We found no evidence to support the claim, and a Harris campaign official said “it is not true.”

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Singer-songwriter Beyoncé has a history of supporting Democratic presidential candidates, dating to 2008, when she appeared with her husband, rapper Jay-Z, at a rally for then-Sen. Barack Obama the day before Election Day.

In July, Beyoncé gave Vice President Kamala Harris permission to use her song “Freedom” during her presidential campaign. And Beyoncé was among the rumored special guests expected to appear at the Democratic National Convention in August. (She didn’t.)

It wasn’t until October that Beyoncé officially endorsed Harris. She appeared at an Oct. 25 rally for the vice president in the singer’s hometown of Houston, where she encouraged Texans to vote for Harris. “It’s time for America to sing a new song,” she said.

Social media users have since made the unfounded claim that Beyoncé received $10 million in exchange for her endorsement of Harris.

The claim was shared to X on Oct. 26, where it was viewed more than 1 million times, according to the platform. The post reads, in part, “BREAKING: It is being reported that Beyonce got paid $10 MILLION for her speech last night.” A screenshot of the post was also shared on Threads.

A similar claim was made on X on Oct. 26: “Beyonce was paid $10 million for her 2 minute speech at Kamala’s rally last night. $5 million dollars per minute.”

Beyoncé actually spoke for around four minutes at the Houston rally, and there’s no evidence she was paid for it.

The claim was also shared on Threads in a post that referenced Elon Musk’s America PAC giving away $1 million to registered voters in swing states. The post said, “So Elon can’t pay someone for signing a petition, but Kamala can pay someone 10 million dollars to try and influence voters?”

Musk’s PAC is currently being sued by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner for running an illegal lottery. Federal law prohibits paying people for registering to vote.

It is, however, legal for a campaign to pay for endorsements, provided that the expenditures are publicly disclosed. But we found no evidence to suggest that Beyoncé was paid anything for her endorsement, and a Harris campaign official told us in an email the social media claim “is not true.”

The Harris campaign, as of Oct. 17, lists only one endorsement-related expenditure — for $75 — in its Federal Election Commission financial reports. It was made to the League of Conservation Voters, a pro-environment nonprofit, in June, when President Joe Biden was still running for reelection.

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Blair, Olivia. “Beyonce and Jay Z endorse Hillary Clinton at Ohio concert.” Independent. 5 Nov 2016.

Czopek, Madison. “Claims that the Harris campaign paid Lizzo $2.3 million to appear at an event are unsubstantiated.” PolitiFact. 28 Oct 2024.

Decker, Casey. “Yes, it’s legal for federal candidates to pay for endorsements.” Verify This. 10 Oct 2022.

Diggs, Brittany. “Jay Z hosts Obama rally.” Temple News. 4 Nov 2008.

Epstein, Reid J., et al. “Beyoncé Rallies for Harris in Houston With a Message for the Battlegrounds.” New York Times. 26 Oct 2024.

Gardner, Amy. “Jay-Z, Beyonce raise money for Obama.” Washington Post. 18 Sep 2012.

Gore, D’Angelo. “America PAC.” FactCheck.org. 18 Sep 2024.

Gore, D’Angelo. “League of Conservation Voters.” FactCheck.org. 5 Sep 2024.

Maloy, Ashley Fetters, and Herb Scribner. “Beyoncé at the DNC? It wasn’t to Bey.” Washington Post. 23 Aug 2024.

Nicholas, Peter, and Dareh Gregorian. “President Joe Biden drops out of 2024 presidential race.” NBC. 21 Jul 2024.

Perez, Evan, et al. “Justice Department warns Elon Musk that his $1 million giveaway to registered voters may be illegal.” CNN. 23 Oct 2024.

Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. “DA Krasner Statement Regarding Civil Action to Enjoin Lottery by America PAC.” Release. 28 Oct 2024.

Porterfield, Carlie. “Beyoncé Encourages Fans To Vote As She Touts Biden In Last-Minute Instagram Endorsement.” Forbes. 2 Nov 2020.

Wagmeister, Elizabeth. “Exclusive: Beyoncé gives Kamala Harris permission to use her song ‘Freedom’ for her presidential campaign.” CNN. 22 Jul 2024.

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Quick Take

The Department of Defense issued a standard policy revision in September to existing procedures for the intelligence community. Some social media accounts have misrepresented the language and timing of the update to falsely claim the military has been newly authorized “To Use Lethal Force On Americans!!”

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The Department of Defense published an updated policy on intelligence gathering on Sept. 27.

The update didn’t add any new rules or expand military authority. It just described some existing policy from other, related protocols about the use of force.

But some conservative influencers have misrepresented the revised policy, claiming that it “NOW includes the legal use of lethal force against civilians by the military,” or that the “US military was just ‘authorized to kill Americans on US soil.’”

Others have gone in a decidedly political direction, claiming: “DoD quietly expands military powers just weeks before the 2024 election,” and “Biden & Harris Authorize Military To Use Lethal Force On Americans!!”

An analysis from the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public shows that by Oct. 16 there were thousands of posts and engagements on both mainstream and more niche social media platforms. On that date, there were more than 250 new posts per 12-hour period on “alternative tech” platforms, such as Truth Social and Rumble.

But the claims in those posts weren’t true.

The policy at issue is Department of Defense Directive 5240.01, which sets procedures to be followed by Defense Department intelligence workers. The U.S. has 18 different intelligence units and nine of them are within the Defense Department, including the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the intelligence offices for the various branches of the military.

“The previous revision of DoDD 5240.01 was issued on March 22, 2019,” Sue Gough, spokesperson for the Department of Defense, told us in an email. “Reissuing 5240.01 was part of normal business of the Department to periodically update guidance and policy.”

The procedure for reissuing policies like this involves five stages of development and review and takes at least six months, according to department instructions.

“The release was in no way timed in relation to the election or any other event,” Gough said.

Furthermore, the portion of the revised policy that’s the focus of most social media posts isn’t anything new.

Posts on this issue typically cite a paragraph specifying one of the situations in which the secretary of defense may approve a request for help from state or local law enforcement agencies.

The paragraph says the secretary may approve requests for (emphasis is ours): “Assistance in responding with assets with potential for lethality, or any situation in which it is reasonably foreseeable that providing the requested assistance may involve the use of force that is likely to result in lethal force, including death or serious bodily injury. It also includes all support to civilian law enforcement officials in situations where a confrontation between civilian law enforcement and civilian individuals or groups is reasonably anticipated. Such use of force must be in accordance with DoDD 5210.56, potentially as further restricted based on the specifics of the requested support.”

The phrases “potential for lethality” and “lethal force” are often emphasized in social media posts.

While that language is new to DoDD 5240.01, “it does not represent any change to DoD’s policy regarding the use of lethal force, which is addressed in DoDD 5210.56, ‘Arming and the Use of Force,’” Gough said. “The revised 5240.01 simply describes how this long-standing policy applies to the DoD intelligence community.”

The purpose of that directive, among other things, is to establish “policy and standards” for “the use of force by DoD personnel.” It sets guidelines for when and how to use “less than deadly force” and when it is justified to use “deadly force.”

The full policy on use of force within the Department of Defense can be seen here. All of the department’s published policies can be seen here.

While use of military personnel within the U.S. has been rare, there have been some instances. In 1992, for example, seven U.S. Marines responded to a domestic violence call with two police officers in Los Angeles during riots there. A Brennan Center for Justice report on the issue published Oct. 2 recommended reigning in presidential authority to summon troops domestically.

But the recently revised Defense Department policy hasn’t added any such authority.

“Speculation about this directive appears to have significant resonance across multiple communities as the November 5 election draws close,” the University of Washington analysis concluded. “This evolving rumor may have the potential to translate to calls for action or offline mobilization: the implication that the US military is gearing up to crack down on election-related civil unrest may prime certain audiences to prepare for violence or confrontation with law enforcement in the aftermath of the election.”

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Department of Defense. Directive 5240.01. 27 Sep 2024.

University of Washington. Center for an Informed Public. “Rumors rapidly spreading about reissued Department of Defense Directive 5240.01.” 18 Oct 2024.

Congressional Research Service. “Defense Primer: National and Defense Intelligence.” 22 Apr 2024.

Department of Defense. Instruction 5025.01. 7 Jun 2023.

Gough, Sue. Spokesperson, U.S. Department of Defense. Email to FactCheck.org. 23 Oct 2024.

U.S. Department of Defense. Directive 5210.56. 18 Nov 2016.

Superville, Darlene, Tim Sullivan and Aaron Morrison. “Trump threatens military force against protesters nationwide.” Associated Press. 2 Jun 2020.

Schmitt, Eric, et al. “Esper Breaks With Trump on Using Troops Against Protesters.” New York Times. Updated 9 Nov 2020.

Nunn, Joseph. “Limiting the Military’s Role in Law Enforcement.” Brennan Center for Justice. 2 Oct 2024.

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Quick Take

Dominion Voting Systems, which was the target of baseless conspiracy theories after the 2020 election, will be used by 27 states in the 2024 election. But some social media posts falsely claim Gov. Ron DeSantis said Dominion “will NOT operate in the state of Florida.” The Florida Department of State approved the use of Dominion equipment, which will be used in 18 counties.

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Dominion Voting Systems has been a target of election-related misinformation, as we’ve previously written.

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, former President Donald Trump pushed a baseless conspiracy theory that Dominion Voting Systems had switched “thousands of votes” from Trump to President-elect Joe Biden and “deleted” millions of Trump votes, citing a report by One America News. A group of federal, state and local officials overseeing the nation’s voting system refuted such claims just hours after Trump tweeted them.

“There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised,” the Elections Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Executive Committees said in a joint statement. The statement described the 2020 election as “the most secure in American history.”

On April 18, 2023, Dominion Voting Systems settled a defamation lawsuit against Fox News for $787.5 million after alleging the news organization and some of its commentators spread lies about the company. Several months later, a Dominion executive settled a suit against One American News, but the terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Dominion Voting Systems currently supplies election technology in 27 states and Puerto Rico and is “committed to ensuring the security of elections,” according to the company website. Dominion also maintains a fact-checking resource to address misinformation relating to the 2024 election.

But recent social media posts falsely claim that Dominion Voting Systems will not operate in Florida this November and mischaracterize Dominion ownership. 

One Threads user falsely claimed, “BREAKING: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says Dominion voting systems will NOT operate in the state of Florida.” 

A post on Instagram included this same allegation, plus additional misleading questions regarding Dominion ownership: “Who owns stock in Dominion voting systems? Do Congress members? Do past and current presidents? Do family members of government officials? Are the elections rigged by both sides of the aisle?”

Contrary to the claims on social media, Dominion Voting Systems will operate in Florida this election. And the company has “no ownership ties to … U.S. political party leaders,” the company website states. Dominion Voting Systems is a privately held company, meaning it is not traded on stock exchanges or legally required to report financial information to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 

As we’ve written, the private equity firm Staple Street Capital owns a roughly 76% stake in Dominion Voting Systems. John Poulos, the CEO of Dominion Voting Systems, owns 12% of the company, and the rest is owned by other members of the company’s leadership.

In an email to FactCheck.org, a Dominion Voting Systems spokesperson said, “Fact: Dominion systems are being used by voters across the State of Florida for the November 2024 election.”

“The company has thousands of customer jurisdictions spread across 27 states,” the spokesperson said.

The Florida Division of Elections had certified two voting systems and vendors as of March 4: Dominion Voting Systems and Election Systems & Software. According to a map posted to the division’s website, 18 Florida counties will use Dominion Voting Systems and 49 counties will use Election Systems & Software.

Voting systems must be approved by the Florida Department of State prior to use. The department only approves voting systems that comply with state law. For example, the system must accurately count votes and provide records “from which the operation of the voting system may be audited.” 

Following approval, the Florida Division of Elections explains on its website, “Voting system software is only issued to county Supervisors of Elections by the Florida Department of State through a ‘trusted build’ process — a secure and well-documented closed chain-of-custody process followed before, throughout, and after installation of new equipment or software.”

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Robertson, Lori, et al. “Trump Repeats Baseless, False Claims About the Election.” FactCheck.org. 1 Dec 2020.

Rieder, Rem. “Trump Tweets Conspiracy Theory About Deleted Votes.” FactCheck.org. 12 Nov 2020. 

Fichera, Angelo. “Audit in Michigan County Refutes Dominion Conspiracy Theory.” FactCheck.org. 18 Dec 2020.

Sanger, David E., et al. “Election Officials Directly Contradict Trump on Voting System Fraud.” New York Times. 12 Nov 2020.

Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency. “Joint Statement from Elections Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council & the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Executive Committees.” Press Release. 12 Nov 2020.

Folkenflik, David, and Mary Yang. “Fox News settles blockbuster defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems.” NPR. 18 Apr 2023.

Sneed, Tierney and Marshall Cohen. “Far-right network OAN settles 2020 election defamation suit brought by ex-Dominion executive.” 5 Sep 2023.

Dominion Voting Systems. “The Dominion Difference – We Deliver!” Accessed 24 Oct 2024.

Dominion Voting Systems. “Setting the Record Straight: Facts About Dominion.” Accessed 24 Oct 2024.

U.S. Government Publishing Office. “Dominion Voting Systems.” 11 Nov 2020.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “About.” 29 Jun 2024.

Dominion Voting Systems. “Dominion Voting Systems Acquired by its Management Team and Staple Street Capital.” PR Newswire. 16 Jul 2018.

Bloomberg. “Fox’s Dominion payout gives Staple Street Capital 1,500% return.” Pensions & Investments. 19 Apr 2023.

Florida Division of Elections. “Certified Voting Systems and Vendors.” 4 Mar 2024.

Florida Division of Elections. “Voting Systems in Florida by Vendor.” Feb 2024. 

Florida Division of Elections. “About Voting Systems.” 17 Feb 2023.

Online Sunshine. Accessed 24 Oct 2024.

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Quick Take

National Guard troops have been activated during past elections to assist with cybersecurity, processing votes and potential protests. But social media posts have made the unsupported claim that former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called for the National Guard “at every voting station and ballot counting facility” on Election Day.

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Ahead of Election Day in 2020, 16 states called on National Guard members to assist with election cybersecurity, processing votes and crowd control, in expectation of protests to the election outcome. National Guard troops had also been used in the 2016 and 2018 elections, when they helped defend the election system from hackers.

In October, former President Donald Trump advocated the deployment of the National Guard or the U.S. military on Election Day 2024 to address what he described as “the enemy from within” and “radical left lunatics.” Federal law prohibits the use of the federal military personnel as a domestic policing force, but the National Guard, under the command of state governors, is exempt.

Social media users now have made the unsupported claim that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also thinks the National Guard should be activated in every state on Election Day.

The claim was originally shared on X on Oct. 19, where it received nearly 700,000 views according to the platform. The post read, “BREAKING: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Says, The National Guard should be deployed at every voting station and ballot counting facility to protect our elections.” The claim was posted on Threads by another user on Oct. 20.

Kennedy had been an independent candidate for president, but he suspended his campaign in August and endorsed Trump. In a speech to the National Guard Association, Trump said, “We’re very proud to welcome Bobby to our cause. He’s a really terrific guy.” Trump’s campaign later said Kennedy had joined the former president’s transition team.

But we haven’t been able to find any evidence that Kennedy made the statement in the social media posts or that he supports the deployment of National Guard troops to voting stations and ballot-counting centers.

The user who originally shared the claim to X has a history of fabricating quotes from Kennedy. On Oct. 21, the user quoted Kennedy as saying, “The 2020 Election was 100% stolen from Donald Trump.” But Kennedy has acknowledged President Joe Biden as the legitimate victor of the 2020 election.

In September, the same X account claimed that Kennedy called for Pride flags to be banned from government buildings. But we haven’t been able to find evidence that Kennedy made this statement, either. In the past, Kennedy has been supportive of marriage equality. In June 2023, while he was still campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, he said, “There will be nobody in the Oval Office who is more supportive of LGBQT rights.”

We reached out to Kennedy for comment on the social media posts, but we didn’t hear back.

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Cooper, Jonathan J., et al. “RFK Jr. suspends his presidential bid and backs Donald Trump before appearing with him at his rally.” Associated Press. 23 Aug 2024.

Human Rights Campaign. Press release. “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Joins Calls for Marriage Equality in New York and Nationwide.” 27 Jan 2011.

Kim, Soo Rin, et al. “Trump adds RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard to his transition team.” ABC. 27 Aug 2024.

Marsh, Rene. “Ohio taps National Guard to defend election system from hackers.” CNN. 1 Nov 2016.

Mistich, Dave. “States Turn To National Guard To Protect Future Elections From Hackers.” NPR. 11 Apr 2018.

Mitchell, Ellen. “Here’s where the National Guard is activated on Election Day.” The Hill. 3 Nov 2020.

National Guard Bureau. “National Guard will support election in multiple states.” 2 Nov 2020.

News Nation. “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defends support of LGBTQ rights | RFK Jr. Town Hall.” Video. 29 Jun 2023.

Nunn, Joseph. “The Posse Comitatus Act Explained.” Brennan Center for Justice. 14 Oct 2021.

Rev. “Trump Speaks at National Guard Conference in Detroit.” Transcript. 27 Aug 2024.

Stracqualursi, Veronica. “Trump suggests using military against ‘enemy from within’ on Election Day.” 14 Oct 2024.

Wells, Dylan, et al. “Where the 2024 candidates stand on elections, democracy and Jan. 6.” Washington Post. 23 Aug 2023.

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Quick Take

Crime statistics compiled by the FBI and other sources show an increase in violent crime, notably murders, in 2020 and a decline since. A revision to the FBI data this year doesn’t change that overall trend, despite claims made on social media and by the Trump campaign to the contrary.

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Local law enforcement agencies voluntarily report crime data to the FBI, which compiles the figures in annual reports on crime nationwide, with some estimation done when agencies don’t report figures for a full year, or at all. The annual figures for 2023, released last month, show a decline in violent crime since 2020 — the last year of former President Donald Trump’s administration.

In 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a spike in violent crime overall, due to increases in murders and aggravated assaults. Experts have said that the pandemic, and its economic repercussions, was one factor behind the increase. Violent crime has eased back down since then.

The number and rate per 100,000 population for violent crime overall, as well as for murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, all went down from 2020 to 2023, according to the FBI-compiled statistics. The violent crime rate dropped by 22.5 points, the murder rate declined by 0.9 points. The number of murders decreased by 14.5%. (For these figures, see the Crime in the United States Annual Reports here and download the CIUS Estimations file for 2023. See Table 1.)

As we have reported, other sources of crime stats show the same trend. The Major Cities Chiefs Association reports, with the addition of New York City’s statistics, show a 9.1% decrease in the number of murders in 70 large U.S. cities from 2020 to 2023, and a further decline for the first half of 2024. As of early this month, AH Datalytics, an independent criminal justice data analysis group, reported a 17.9% decrease in murders in more than 250 U.S. cities so far this year, compared with the same points in 2023. 

“Violent crime rose in 2020 and has fallen since then though the rise in violent crime has always been more muted than people assume. Murder, by contrast, rose a ton in 2020 and is falling a ton right now,” Jeff Asher, co-founder of AH Datalytics, recently wrote in a Substack post.

Despite these trends, Trump and other Republicans have wrongly claimed throughout the campaign that violent crime has gone up under President Joe Biden. Trump has even claimed that the FBI statistics are “fake.”

Now, the campaign has seized on a yearly revision of the FBI figures. Revisions are routinely done every year, but this year’s were notable because they flipped what was a decline in violent crime from 2021 to 2022 in last year’s report to an increase. (Adam Gelb, president and CEO of the independent Council on Criminal Justice, told us this can happen with revisions, particularly when dealing with “low single-digit percentage point changes.”)

The Trump campaign says the revision is proof that Trump was “right,” and social media posts are falsely claiming the FBI data now reveal that crime has “skyrocketed” or “gone through the ROOF” under Biden.

Even with the revisions, however, the 2022 — and 2023 — figures for violent crime, and murder specifically, are lower than the figures for 2020.

At an Oct. 20 rally in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Trump took issue with ABC News fact-checking him during the debate with Vice President Kamala Harris when Trump claimed that “crime in this country is through the roof.” ABC News moderator David Muir countered, “As you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is actually coming down in this country.”

In Lancaster, Trump wrongly said, “No, no crime is way up. And the FBI, we have to look at this because the FBI put out charts that crime was down initially because they didn’t report certain little areas of the country like the worst areas in the country for crime, and it turned out that their stats were very wrong and very misleading. But he [Muir] was wrong because it was — it’s up like at least 45%.”

Muir wasn’t — and isn’t — wrong, though. The revised FBI figures still show that overall violent crime has come down since 2020, Trump’s last year in office. And they in no way show that crime is up 45%. (Trump often cites the National Crime Victimization Survey, a survey that asks people whether they had been victims of various crimes, though we didn’t see his 45% figure there. The survey has its own limitations, and it doesn’t measure murder, as we’ve explained.)

Trump’s description of how the FBI figures were revised is also off.

Revised Crime Figures

Here’s a comparison of the FBI figures reported last year and the revised figures released last month. As the charts show, while the revisions increased the rate of violent crime (and murder) in 2022, there was an even larger downward revision to the 2021 figures.

One social media post claimed that the FBI “found” 1,699 more murders in 2022, but that’s not the case. The FBI revised the number of murders in 2022 upward by 625, and it revised the 2021 total downward by 1,074.

There’s also reason to doubt, or not read too much into, the 2021 numbers, which, due to a change in methodology, had to be estimated a lot more than usual. That’s the year that had the problem Trump alluded to — fewer law enforcement agencies reporting figures. But the issue is unique to 2021.

Asher told us in a phone interview that the revised 2021 numbers are likely an undercount. AH Datalytics and other crime data sources found a slight increase in murders in 2021 from 2020, so it “doesn’t make a lot of sense” to see a decrease in the latest revision, he said.

As we’ve explained before, the FBI has been transitioning to a new system for data collection, and in 2021, it required local law enforcement agencies to use what’s called the National Incident-Based Reporting System. But at that time, many police departments, including those in New York and Los Angeles, hadn’t switched to NIBRS, so they weren’t included in the raw 2021 statistics. When releasing the 2021 figures initially, the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics provided national estimates for 2021, but they were based on data that covered only about 65% of the population.

Before then — and after 2021 — the data reported by law enforcement agencies covered 90% or more of the population. For 2022 and 2023, participation in NIBRS increased, and the FBI also has accepted data submitted through the older system for agencies that haven’t made the switch. So, the low-reporting problem in 2021 is isolated to that year.

The latest annual figures for 2023 were based on data covering 94.3% of the U.S. population, while 2020 and 2022 figures were based on data covering 97% and 95% of the population, respectively, as shown in a chart Asher published in an Oct. 21 Substack post.

Despite subsequent revisions to the 2021 numbers, they are still uncertain. The reports from law enforcement agencies for that year now cover only 74.1% of the population. 

“Normal levels of participation in 2020, 2022 and 2023 help paint a story of US crime trends that doesn’t rely on the faulty 2021 data,” Asher wrote. “The 2021 estimates were deeply flawed and should largely be ignored. That was true in 2022, it was true in 2023, and it’s true in 2024.”

“I would feel happier if everyone just ignored” the 2021 figures, Asher told us, calling that year’s total a “bad” estimate.

The FBI sent us a statement explaining how the 2021 figures have been estimated since they were first released. It said, as we explained, that because of a “lower volume of participation, the FBI was unable to produce the traditional national estimates for 2021.” To provide a comparison of crime trends, it had performed an “estimation crime trend analysis” for the figures the FBI initially published.

The following year, when it released the 2022 statistics, the 2021 figures included “a statistical sampling of 2021 data to augment the 2021 information collected via NIBRS.” Then, with the release of the 2023 report this year, the FBI revised the 2021 figures to “reflect only estimates based on the data directly reported to the FBI. This explains why the figure appears different than the computed estimation published in the Crime in the Nation, 2022.”

The FBI said that the Crime in the Nation 2023 report “was the first phase in the FBI’s efforts to provide the public with more timely data. The next phase will see a shift to monthly data releases to promote transparency and provide an opportunity for consumers to review data based on more timely crime counts with the understanding that data will be continuously updated. As part of this movement, the FBI has moved towards automation, allowing for past years’ estimates to be updated as data are submitted.”

Some comments by the Trump campaign could leave the impression that the FBI had done something dishonest. Asher and Gelb said there is no evidence of anything like that.

In a campaign email, the Trump campaign said: “A new report reveals the FBI secretly updated its crime data to show that violent crime didn’t drop by 2.1% in 2022, but instead increased in 2022 by 4.5%,” pointing to a report in RealClearInvestigations, which had highlighted the FBI revisions, calling them a “stealth edit” that the FBI didn’t mention in its press release about its report.

Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s vice presidential running mate, said in a speech in North Carolina on Oct. 16 that the FBI “just released some updated crime numbers which suggested crime was higher than they previously let on in 2022. I’m shocked by that.”

It’s true that the FBI’s press release on its latest report didn’t mention the revisions — but such revisions are frequently made, Asher noted, and press releases aren’t sent out about the methodology.

Gelb told us that the FBI “could’ve handled this much better” and “the way that it’s playing out does undermine public confidence.” But “there’s no evidence of any political interference from the administration. None whatsoever. The FBI aggregates these numbers that are supplied by state and local law enforcement.” He’s “not aware of a single agency that said, ‘Hey they garbled our numbers.’”

He said the Council on Criminal Justice has found a similar pattern of crime since 2019. “Violent crimes increased, particularly homicide, during the first couple years of the pandemic,” he said, and then have been decreasing back to the pre-pandemic levels. The opposite happened with property crimes. They went down early in the pandemic, as people stayed home more and stores were closed, making burglaries more difficult, and then property crimes returned as shops opened and people went back to work. An “honest evaluation,” Gelb said, would “look at the broader trend, not two years in middle.”

“There’s no conspiracy, there’s no attempt to deceive, there are not unprecedented stealth changes being suddenly made, the FBI didn’t suddenly ‘find’ a ton of crime,” Asher wrote in his Oct. 21 Substack post.

And despite the revisions, the overall crime trend hasn’t changed.

“We’ve got a lot of sources all pointing in the same direction,” Asher told us. Even if the FBI figures for 2023, and 2024, are later revised up, “we’re still looking at an enormous decrease in murder.”

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Quick Take

As disaster relief efforts continue in the areas affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, a Facebook post makes the false claim that Kid Rock has made “14 trips to storm areas with a truckload of supplies” while Taylor Swift has offered no help. The claim originated on a satirical site. To the contrary, Swift has donated $5 million for hurricane relief.

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Full Story

Recovery efforts continue weeks after Hurricanes Helene and Milton devastated property and killed at least 250 people in parts of the southeastern United States. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it “has spent approximately $4.3 billion on Hurricane Helene response and recovery” as of Oct. 21, including search and rescue efforts and direct assistance to individuals and communities. The agency has delivered more than 12.6 million meals and 13.2 million liters of water to areas affected by Helene.

The hurricanes have also left a trail of misinformation about the federal response and the cause of the intense storms, as we’ve written.

An Oct. 17 Facebook post has drawn the disaster relief efforts into the partisan culture wars, comparing the hurricane assistance provided by musicians Kid Rock, a supporter of former President Donald Trump, and Taylor Swift, who recently endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president. The post falsely claims, “Kid Rock has now made 14 trips to storm areas with a truckload of supplies each time. Taylor Swift is nowhere to be found.”

We found no evidence or news coverage about Kid Rock making 14 trips to the storm areas with a “truckload of supplies.”

The claim originated on a satirical website. A Google search led us to an article in the Dunning-Kruger Times, with the headline, “Kid Rock Heads to North Carolina with Millions in Supplies — Taylor Swift Nowhere to be Found.” The Dunning-Kruger Times is a self-described “subsidiary of the ‘America’s Last Line of Defense’ network of parody, satire, and tomfoolery.” We’ve written many times before about content from this network since it is often copied and reposted by social media users who don’t include a satire disclaimer, as is the case with this claim.

We did find a $20,000 donation attributed to Kid Rock for Trump’s GoFundMe campaign to aid victims of Hurricane Helene. The singer also shared the fundraising campaign link on his X account.

As for Swift, the hunger relief organization Feeding America announced on Oct. 9 that the singer had donated $5 million to the hurricane relief efforts.

“This contribution will help communities rebuild and recover, providing essential food, clean water, and supplies to people affected by these devastating storms,” the organization said in its Instagram post.

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Aniftos, Rania. “Kid Rock Performed at the RNC & the Internet Has Thoughts.” Billboard. 19 Jul 2024.

Eagleton, Flagg. “Kid Rock Heads to North Carolina with Millions in Supplies-Taylor Swift Nowhere to be Found.” Dunning-Kruger Times. 2024.

FactCheck.org. “Misinformation Floods Hurricane Season.” 13 Oct 2024.

Federal Emergency Management Agency. Press release. “Biden-Harris Administration Provides Billions in Federal Assistance for Helene Response and Recovery, Announces Initial Hiring Effort with New Community Liaison Program to Ensure Community-Driven Long-Term Recovery.” 14 Oct 2024.

Feeding America @feedingamerica. “Thank you, @taylorswift, for standing with us in the movement to end hunger and helping communities in need in the wake of #HurricaneHelene and #HurricaneMilton.” Instagram. 9 Oct 2024.

Fields, Ashleigh. “Trump GoFundMe for Hurricane Helene victims raises more than $3M.” The Hill. 1 Oct 2024.

Fox5Atlanta. “Kid Rock among Trump dinner guests at White House.” 24 Apr 2017.

GoFundMe. “Support Hurricane Helene Victims – Trump Authorized.” Accessed 22 Oct 2024.

KidRock @KidRock. “Make America Great Again – Kid Rock Merch Bundle. Only $47! available at http://store.kidrock.com.” X. 19 Sep 2024.

Wilcox, Christie and Phie Jacobs. “‘Daunting’: Hurricane-battered researchers assess damage from Helene and Milton.” Science. 21 Oct 2024.

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Quick Take

Former Vice President Mike Pence has said he will not endorse former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, but Pence has also said he “could never” vote for Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. An edited video on social media misleadingly purports to show Pence endorsing Harris. He did not.

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In the days leading up to and on Jan. 6, 2021, when Congress met to count the electoral votes and certify the 2020 election, former President Donald Trump repeatedly pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject legitimate electoral votes and send them back to the state legislatures to decide, according to the indictment against Trump filed in August 2023.

But on Jan. 7, Pence announced the certified results and declared then-Vice President Joe Biden the victor, as we’ve written.

Since then, Pence has distanced himself from Trump. When Pence announced his campaign for president in June 2023, he said, “I believe that anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” referring to Trump.

During the first Republican primary debate on Aug. 23, 2023, however, Pence indicated that he would support Trump if the former president were chosen as the party’s nominee. Then in March, Pence announced in a Fox News interview that he would not endorse Trump for the 2024 election.

In August, Pence appeared at a forum for conservative leaders hosted by former Fox News commentator Erick Erickson, where he expanded on his decision, saying, “I cannot endorse President Trump’s continuing assertion that I should have set aside my oath to support and defend the Constitution and acted in a way that would’ve overturned the election in January 2021.”

In both interviews, Pence also made it clear he has no intention of supporting the Democratic ticket.

During his appearance at the conservative forum, Pence said, “I could never vote for Kamala Harris as president of the United States or Tim Walz as her running mate. Period. Paragraph.”

But social media users have clipped Pence’s remarks at the forum so that he appears to be endorsing Vice President Harris.

An Oct. 14 post on Threads shared a version of the video, in which Pence’s first three words have been edited out. In the video, he appears to say, “Vote for Kamala Harris as president of the United States or Tim Walz as her running mate. Period. Paragraph.”

The video was also shared to Instagram with the caption, “MIKE PENCE CAUTIONS AMERICANS TO VOTE FOR HARRIS/WALZ.”

But the video shared on social media cuts out the context that makes it clear Pence was not endorsing Harris for president.

Harris has received some support from prominent Republicans and former Trump allies, including former Rep. Liz Cheney and former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham.

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Colvin, Jill. “Former Vice President Mike Pence says he’s not endorsing Trump.” AP. 15 Mar 2024.

Erickson, Erick. “Vice President Mike Pence at The Gathering.” Video. YouTube. 12 Aug 2024.

Farley, Robert. “What Trump Asked of Pence.” FactCheck.org. 3 Aug 2023.

Farley, Robert, et al. “Q&A on Trump’s Jan. 6 Indictment.” FactCheck.org. 1 Aug 2023.

Inside Radio. “Radio Host Erickson’s ‘The Gathering’ Set for Next Week.” 29 Jul 2024.

Miller, Zeke, et al. “Biden drops out of 2024 race after disastrous debate inflamed age concerns. VP Harris gets his nod.” AP. 21 Jul 2024.

O’Kane, Caitlin. “The GOP candidates were asked if they would support Trump as the presidential nominee if he was convicted. Here’s how they responded.” CBS. 24 Aug 2023.

Quinn, Melissa. “Republicans who have endorsed Kamala Harris and spoken out against Trump.” CBS. 3 Oct 2024.

Stracqualursi, Veronica. “Pence announces 2024 White House run, arguing Trump ‘should never’ be president again.” CNN. 7 Jun 2023.

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. United States v. Donald J. Trump. Case 1:23-cr-00257-TSC. 1 Aug 2023.

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Quick Take

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk made an unsupported claim online that a liberal group “attempted to inject chaos” into the 2024 election by dropping off 20,000 voter registrations in Maricopa County on the last eligible day. It’s unclear whether any group delivered that many forms, but experts say that amount can be processed by election offices. 

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Maricopa County — Arizona’s most populous county and the fourth most populous in the U.S. — was the target of misinformation after the 2020 election due to the pivotal swing state’s importance in deciding the winner of the presidential election, as we’ve written.

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, accused county officials of running a “corrupted election” in 2020, and he continues to spread misinformation about Maricopa County.

In June, Trump falsely suggested that Senate candidate Kari Lake lost her 2022 race for governor because there was a plot to break the county’s “Republican [voting] machines.” Some printers did produce ballots that were too light for on-site tabulators, but those ballots could have been counted later. Lake’s court challenges failed and an independent review found no evidence of wrongdoing. 

Conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, who also baselessly suggested that the Democrats plotted to suppress the Republican vote in Maricopa County in the 2022 election, is again claiming that liberals are trying to disrupt Maricopa County’s election process.

Kirk, founder of the conservative student group Turning Point USA, posted on Threads that he heard reports that “a left-leaning group” dropped off 20,000 voter registration forms to Maricopa County on Oct. 7, the final day the state’s voter registrations were accepted.

“Getting reports that a left-leaning group just dropped off 20,000 voter registration forms to Maricopa County on the last day. This is almost assuredly a Democrat ‘dump’ at the end to try to inject chaos and bring litigation to give the Democrats more opportunity to manipulate the law and squeeze in more registrations,” Kirk said.

Andrew Kolvet, a spokesperson for Turning Point Action, the political advocacy arm of Turning Point USA, told us in an email that a staffer at the organization heard about the voter registration drop from a county worker and that the report may or may not be accurate. He said the staffer was not told the name of the organization that dropped off the ballots. 

Kolvet said, “Taking this over from TPUSA team as this was a Turning Point Action (sister c4 org) staffer that was told this by a county worker. We hope the report is wrong. Please disprove it! This staffer was not told the name of the org so that’s why the tweet said ‘reports of a left leaning group.’”

Kolvet did not respond to follow-up questions regarding whether the “county worker” actually worked for Maricopa County Elections, or another department within the county.

A spokesperson for the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office told us in an email that the office received “a significant amount of paper voter registration forms on [Oct. 7],” the voter registration deadline. But he could not confirm if a particular group dropped off 20,000 forms. “It is not unusual to receive thousands of forms in the days leading up to the registration deadline,” the spokesperson said. 

On Oct. 5, the Arizona secretary of state’s office issued a notice about ongoing registration outreach efforts being conducted by the voter registration nonprofits Voter Participation Center and the Center for Voter Information. Both organizations have the same CEO, Tom Lopach, a former executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The Voter Participation Center aims to boost turnout among people of color, unmarried women and young people.

“These private organizations aim to engage Arizona voters by increasing participation in upcoming elections. VPC and CVI have sent voter registration forms to residents in all 15 counties,” the secretary of state’s notice said. The secretary of state’s office said those organizations did not use the official form created by its office, but their form is in compliance legally and will be processed by county recorders. 

Increased Registration Activity at Deadline

If a group did drop off 20,000 voter registrations just before the deadline, it could perhaps cause a headache for election officials. But it wouldn’t be nefarious or illegal, nor would it sow “chaos” into the election process as Kirk asserted, election experts say. 

“While receiving 20,000 at once could be unusual, it is not unlawful as long as all the forms are filled out in accordance with the law,” the spokesperson for the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office said.

The spokesperson added, “We consistently see an increase in voter registration forms ahead of the voter registration deadline. We have dozens of dedicated staff members working to process [each] form.”

Groups dropping off 20,000 voter registration forms at the last minute is “not terribly unusual,” Justin Levitt, a law professor and elections law expert at Loyola Marymount University’s law school, told us. The groups conducting voter registration drives often get inundated with registration forms near the deadline, while election offices see an increase in activity among groups turning in those forms, he said. 

“Voter registration deadlines reliably prompt a lot of registration activity,” Levitt said. “A feature of having a deadline is most people take that as having a prompt to respond shortly before.”

It’s not illegal either, as there’s no limit on the number of registrations that someone is allowed to drop off in Arizona, said Jim Barton, an elections lawyer and a partner at the Arizona-based law firm Barton Mendez Soto. Barton has represented clients that pushed for progressive ballot measures. 

“It’s a big number but it doesn’t strike me as untoward in any way,” Barton said.

While elections officials expect and plan for registrations to come in close to deadline, and perhaps even hire extra people to account for it, it is harder for those offices to process the forms, Levitt said. 

“It’s not easy on officials when a large slate comes in, but officials are also used to it,” he said. “I don’t anticipate any problems.”

Some states have tried to smooth out that registration curb, said Levitt, by implementing automatic voter registration processes, such as automatically registering people who interact with the state Department of Motor Vehicles. Arizona is not among those states, according to the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures. 

When registration forms come in late, there is a possibility that more mistakes will be made by the elections office, Levitt said. Groups know this and have an interest in turning in registration forms earlier so the person who collects them can check to make sure they are accurate as possible, he said. 

“Nobody has an interest in hanging on to registration forms until the last minute. That’s not a thing,” he said. “There would be no reason for a voter registration organization to have 20,000 forms that came in a month ago and be holding on to them until the last day.”

Levitt added that if a group were to turn in that many voter registrations before the deadline, those registrations would still be legal and valid.

“There’s no difference between 20,000 people submitting registrations on the last day and the group submitting 20,000 registrations on the last day,” he said. “It’s the same volume of activity, whether one person is dropping them off or if 20,000 people are dropping them off.”

“I don’t see how submitting legal forms from an eligible voter before the deadline or at the deadline amounts to manipulation of a process that is designed to accept legal forms from eligible voters up until the deadline,” Levitt said. “That’s not manipulation of the process, that’s the process.”

Barton added that registrations that come in at the last minute will still get verified by the county recorder, and if there are forms from fake or ineligible voters, those won’t be processed. He said he didn’t see any reason how this could lead to litigation as Kirk asserted. 

While Kirk is wary of the influx of registrations, his organization has touted its efforts to register a large number of Arizonans. 

Turning Point Action, through its get-out-the-vote initiative, Chase the Vote, “registered 3,000+ on the final day of registration,” Kolvet said. “I don’t have the number for total through cycle at this point, but our estimates are that we helped register over 1/4th of all new voter registrations in the state of Arizona since 2020. Obviously many more throughout the country.”

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Arizona Secretary of State. Email to FactCheck.org. 9 Oct 2024. 

Arizona Secretary of State. “Important Notice: Voter Registration Efforts by External Groups Not Affiliated with Arizona Secretary of State.” 5 Jun 2024.

Barton, Jim. Partner at Barton Mendez Soto law firm. Phone interview with FactCheck.org. 10 Oct 2024.

Center for Voter Information. “About Us.” Accessed 11 Oct 2024.

Cubit. Arizona Counties by Population (2024). Accessed Oct 15 2024.

Jones, Brea. “Myth of Ballot Watermarks Flushed Out Again.” FactCheck.org. 12 May 2021.

Kiely, Eugene. “Trump Spreads Election Misinformation in Key States.” FactCheck.org. 21 Jun 2024. 

Kolvet, Andrew. Turning Point Action spokesperson. Email to FactCheck.org. 9 Oct 2024. 

Levitt, Justin. Law professor, Loyola Marymount University, Loyola Law School. Phone interview with FactCheck.org. 11 Oct 2024. 

Maricopa County Recorder’s Office. Spokesperson. Email to FactCheck.org. 9 Oct 2024.

National Conference of State Legislatures. “Automatic Voter Registration.” Updated 24 Sep 2024.

Spencer, Saranac Hale. “Ballot Printer Delayed Maricopa Voting, Contrary to Unfounded Claims.” FactCheck.org. 29 Nov 2022.

Spencer, Saranac Hale. “Sharpie Ballots Count in Arizona.” FactCheck.org. 4 Nov 2020.

Stanford Data Commons. Ranking by Population. All Counties in Arizona. Accessed 15 Oct 2024.

Statista. “The 25 largest counties in the United States in 2022, by population.” Accessed 15 Oct 2024.

Turning Point Action. “Turning Point Action’s Chase The Vote Initiative.” Accessed 11 Oct 2024. 

Voter Participation Center. “Who is VPC?” Accessed 11 Oct 2024.

World Population Review. US County Populations 2024. Accessed Oct 14 2024.

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Quick Take

The House committee that investigated the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, issued a more than 800-page report presenting and analyzing the evidence about what happened that day. It also released videos, transcribed interviews, depositions and other documents. But some high-profile conservatives are now making the false claim that the committee destroyed “all the evidence.”

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The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol issued a more than 800-page report in 2022 that detailed how former President Donald Trump’s false claims undermining the integrity of the 2020 election led to the Capitol riot.

The committee also released more than 140 transcripts of the testimony that went into the report and has made public videos, depositions and documents — including memos, emails and voicemails.

But now, in the final weeks before the 2024 election, some conservative influencers — including Donald Trump Jr. and Jack Posobiec — are spreading a meme making the false claim that the committee destroyed “all the evidence” linking Trump to the attack.

The meme features a picture of Al Pacino in the 1983 film “Scarface” with this text: “If Trump was guilty why did the J6 Select Committee destroy all the evidence they compiled against him?”

The committee did no such thing.

The claim that the committee destroyed evidence appears to be a reprise of a talking point we wrote about last year. Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk, of Georgia, had told Fox News in a story published on Aug. 8, 2023, that the committee hadn’t adequately preserved some documents, data and video depositions.

The same day, Trump took that argument further, posting on his social media platform: “The January 6th Unselect Committee got rid of EVERYTHING! Discarded, Deleted, Thrown Out. A Flagrant Violation of the law.”

The following month, in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Trump made a similar claim.

But, as we noted at the time, Loudermilk’s original claim didn’t allege that the committee’s records were destroyed, as Trump claimed. Rather, Loudermilk raised concerns over what materials needed to be archived. When we reached out to Trump’s spokesperson for clarification or evidence to support his claims, we didn’t get a response.

In a letter to Loudermilk on July 7, 2023, Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chaired the committee, reported that more than a million records had been prepared for publication and archiving in coordination with several governmental offices, including the National Archives and Records Administration and the Committee on House Administration.

In a footnote to that letter, Thompson explained, “the Select Committee did not archive temporary committee records that were not elevated by the Committee’s actions, such as use in hearings or official publications, or those that did not further its investigative activities.”

So, the meme shared by Trump’s eldest child and Posobiec appears to be a rehashed version of this old claim. In reality, the evidence collected by the committee is still publicly available on a government website.

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Final Report. 22 Dec 2022.

Habeshian, Sareen. “All the transcripts the Jan. 6 committee has released so far.” Axios. 30 Dec 2022.

Farley, Robert and D’Angelo Gore. “FactChecking Trump on ‘Meet the Press.’” FactCheck.org. 20 Sep 2023.

U.S. Government Publishing Office. Select January 6th Committee Final Report and Supporting Materials Collection. Accessed 14 Oct 2024.

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Quick Take

Social media posts misleadingly claim that “Trump’s Project 2025 will end” the Federal Emergency Management Agency and provide “ZERO federal help” to disaster victims. Project 2025 is not former President Donald Trump’s plan, and there is no evidence that he would “end” FEMA. In fact, his administration spent tens of billions on disaster aid when he was president.

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Full Story

Hurricane Helene, which made landfall on Sept. 26 in northwest Florida, caused destruction across six southeastern states and has claimed at least 231 lives, making it one of the deadliest hurricanes to strike the U.S. mainland since Hurricane Katrina.

Federal assistance for Helene exceeded $344 million by Oct. 9, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency has deployed thousands of personnel, assessed damage and provided essential aid, including meals, water, generators and tarps, to the affected regions. The extent of the damage will require “a multibillion-dollar, multiyear recovery” effort, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said. 

As Hurricane Milton slammed into Florida’s western coast on the evening of Oct. 9 with what the National Weather Service called a “life-threatening” storm surge, FEMA is in the eye of a misinformation storm. (The spread of false claims has become so pervasive that the agency has launched a dedicated “Rumor Response” page for Hurricane Helene, following similar pages launched during the COVID-19 pandemic and previous disasters.)

Recent social media posts have made misleading claims about the future of FEMA if former President Donald Trump returns to the White House.

“Trumps Project 2025 will end FEMA,” an Oct. 2 Threads post claimed.

“If Donald Trump were president today, he would tell North Carolina they’re on their own and getting ZERO federal help. How do we know this? It’s in Project 2025,” another Threads user wrote.

Project 2025, which is being led and funded by the conservative Heritage Foundation, is a detailed plan to reduce the size and scope of government under “the next conservative President.” We have written extensively about the project and have debunked false and misleading claims about it.

Although portions of it were developed by former Trump aides, Project 2025 isn’t a Trump campaign document and the former president has distanced himself from it.

“I have nothing to do with Project 2025,” Trump said during the Sept. 10 debate. “This was a group of people that got together, they came up with some ideas. I guess some good, some bad. But it makes no difference. I have nothing to do [with it].”

There also is no evidence to support the claim that Trump would “end FEMA” or provide “zero federal help” if he gets back into office.

Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told us in an email that the social media claims are “fake news.”

During his presidency, Trump authorized tens of billions in disaster assistance through FEMA. From fiscal years 2017 to 2020, a period spanning part of former President Barack Obama’s tenure and most of Trump’s time in office, FEMA spent nearly $94 billion from the Disaster Relief Fund, according to the Congressional Budget Office. In FY2018 alone, the agency allocated nearly $23 billion for recovery efforts following three major hurricanes in the 2017 hurricane season: Harvey, Irma and Maria.

FEMA said the number of applications for assistance during Harvey was “one of the highest in FEMA history.” Within just 30 days, more than $1.5 billion in federal aid was distributed to Texans affected by the storm, covering assistance grants, low-interest disaster loans and advance payments for flood insurance, according to FEMA.

Contrary to social media claims, Trump also has made comments during the current presidential campaign that indicate he will continue to support federal disaster assistance.

Trump has criticized the Biden administration for not doing enough during Hurricane Helene. Trump posted on Truth Social on Oct. 9, saying, “They can’t get anything done properly, but I will make up for lost time, and do it right, when I get there.”

Project 2025 isn’t calling for the elimination of FEMA, either, although experts say the changes it proposes would undermine the agency.

“Rather than ‘cutting’ FEMA, Project 2025 is advocating for a realignment of the agency’s mission and focus – away from DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] and climate change initiatives and restoring it to that of helping people before, during, and after disasters,” a Project 2025 spokesperson told us in an email.

The project’s policy agenda, which was published online in “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” proposes changes to FEMA in a chapter written by Ken Cuccinelli, who served as acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in the Trump administration. It recommends that FEMA “be moved to the Department of the Interior or, if combined with the [Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency], to the Department of Transportation.” 

“FEMA is the lead federal agency in preparing for and responding to disasters, but it is overtasked, overcompensates for the lack of state and local preparedness and response, and is regularly in deep debt,” Project 2025 says.

The plan calls for “reforming FEMA emergency spending to shift the majority of preparedness and response costs to states and localities instead of the federal government, eliminating most of DHS’s grant programs.”

Experts: Project 2025 Would Weaken FEMA

Experts say claims on social media that Project 2025 will “end FEMA” are not accurate, but the plan’s proposed changes to FEMA’s structure could undermine its ability to effectively respond to disasters. 

“This idea that Project 2025 and Trump would eliminate FEMA is just not true,” Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, told us in a phone interview. “There clearly is a role for FEMA. It’s just a reduced role in a reduced capacity, which I think would not be good for equity, would not be good for the increasing hazards that we face.”

“I think what [Project 2025} would do was really bring it back to where it was at the time of Hurricane Katrina. … And we all know how that worked out,” Schlegelmilch said, referring to FEMA’s failures in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005.

FEMA was established in 1979 by then-President Jimmy Carter to coordinate the federal government’s response to disasters and emergencies. Initially, it was an independent agency focused on disaster response and recovery efforts. In 2003, FEMA was transferred to the newly created Department of Homeland Security as part of a broader effort to streamline and enhance national security and emergency management after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. 

“So at that time, FEMA had been moved under the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Homeland Security became much more terrorism-oriented, much more infrastructure-oriented. And FEMA was sort of demoted, kind of within that structure,” Schlegelmilch said.

Dr. Samantha Montano, assistant professor of emergency management at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, was also critical of Project 2025’s proposals for FEMA.

“There is nothing in Project 2025 that aligns with the policy recommendations that come out of the empirical research that we have on what makes emergency management effective,” Montano told us in a phone interview.

“So currently, it’s within DHS, which is not effective, and moving it to another agency, whether it’s [the Department of] Interior or the Department of Transportation, would not solve the problem. It would just shuffle it into another agency,” Montano said. “It is the belief of many in emergency management that FEMA is most effective when it is an independent cabinet-level agency.”

Regarding Project 2025’s proposal on shifting most of FEMA’s preparedness and response costs to the states, Montano said, “I think this would be absolutely devastating, especially for small, poorer communities and states. The vast majority of states do not have the resources to fund their own responses and recoveries.”

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Congressional Budget Office. “FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund: Budgetary History and Projections.” November 2022.

Contorno, Steve. “Trump claims not to know who is behind Project 2025. A CNN review found at least 140 people who worked for him are involved.” CNN. 11 Jul 2024.

Czachor, Emily Mae. “Hurricane Milton makes landfall as Category 3 on Florida’s west coast.” CBS News. 10 Oct 2024.

Federal Emergency Management Agency. “Federal Assistance for Hurricane Helene Exceeds $344 Million as FEMA Expands Dual Response Efforts as Hurricane Milton Forecast to Make Landfall This Evening.” 9 Oct 2024.

Federal Emergency Management Agency. “Disaster Relief Fund: Monthly Report.” 13 Sep 2019.

Federal Emergency Management Agency. “FEMA Assistance Tops $1 Billion for Florida Hurricane Irma Survivors.” 19 Apr 2018.

Federal Emergency Management Agency. “Historic Disaster Response to Hurricane Harvey in Texas.” 22 Sep 2017.

Federal Emergency Management Agency. “History of FEMA.” 4 Jan 2021.

Federal Emergency Management Agency. “Hurricane Helene: Rumor Response.” 4 Oct 2024.

Federal Emergency Management Agency. “Coronavirus Rumor Control.” Updated 15 May 2023.

Federal Emergency Management Agency. “President Donald J. Trump Approves Major Disaster Declaration for Hawaii.” Press release. 28 Sep 2018.

Flaherty, Anne and Stephanie Ebbs. “Trump to tap FEMA account to step up migrant deportations, House Dems say no way.” ABC News. 28 Aug 2019.

Gore, D’Angelo. “Trump’s False Claim of Stolen Disaster Relief Funds.” FactCheck.org. 8 Oct 2024.

Hoffman, Riley. “Harris-Trump presidential debate transcript.” ABC News. 10 Sep 2024.

Keefe, Eliza. “Posts Misrepresent Federal Response, Funding for Hurricane Helene Victims.” FactCheck.org. 8 Oct 2024.

Kiely, Eugene, D’Angelo Gore and Robert Farley. “A Guide to Project 2025.” FactCheck.org. 10 Sep 2024.

Leavitt, Karoline. Spokesperson, Donald J. Trump for President 2024. Email to FactCheck.org. 9 Oct 2024.

Montano, Samantha. Assistant professor of emergency management, Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Phone interview with FactCheck.org. 7 Oct 2024.

National Weather Service Forecast Office, Tampa Bay Area, Florida. “Key Messages for Hurricane Milton.” 8 Oct 2024.

Project 2025. “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.” Accessed 8 Oct 2024.

Sanchez, Ray. “‘The power of water.’ How Helene devastated western North Carolina and left communities in ruins.” CNN. 6 Oct 2024

Schlegelmilch, Jeffrey. Director, National Center for Disaster Preparedness, Columbia Climate School. Phone interview with FactCheck.org. 7 Oct 2024.

Trump, Donald. “Western North Carolina, and the whole state, for that matter, has been totally and incompetently mismanaged by Harris/Biden. They can’t get anything done properly, but I will make up for lost time, and do it right, when I get there.” Truth Social. 9 Oct 2024.

White House. “Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned.” Sep 2005.

White House. “Press Gaggle by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas En Route Greenville, SC.” 2 Oct 2024.

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This post was originally published on FactCheck.org.

Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino.

Quick Take

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has provided more than $210 million in immediate assistance to communities affected by Hurricane Helene, which the Department of Homeland Security secretary has described as the start of “a multibillion-dollar, multiyear recovery.” Social media posts make the false claim that storm victims are getting “only $750,” and misleadingly compare that to foreign aid.

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Full Story

Communities across the southeastern United States suffered catastrophic damage and loss of life after Hurricane Helene made landfall near Perry, Florida, as a Category 4 storm on Sept. 26. 

With more than 230 confirmed dead by Oct. 8 and many still missing, Helene ranks as the second-deadliest hurricane to hit the contiguous United States over the last 50 years. Hurricane Katrina was the deadliest, with a toll of at least 1,833.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency directs the federal response to all disasters warranting a presidential disaster declaration. It is operating alongside state, local and tribal partners to address property wreckage and restore access to food, potable water, power, cellular reception and transportation infrastructure. The agency began preparing commodities and equipment before the storm made landfall.

As of Oct. 8, FEMA had provided more than $210 million in federal assistance and supplied more than 15.6 million meals, over 13.9 million liters of water, 157 generators and more than 505,000 tarps to affected communities across Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee – the six states for which President Joe Biden has approved major disaster declarations. Almost 7,000 federal personnel, including FEMA staff, have been deployed to the region.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the magnitude of the disaster will require “a multibillion-dollar, multiyear recovery” effort. “We have towns that have disappeared, literally,” he said.

But social media posts have spread false claims that the federal government is doing little or nothing to help storm survivors, while spending billions on foreign aid.

In a misleading Oct. 3 Instagram post, conservative commentator Benny Johnson wrote, “We can send BILLIONS to Ukraine but Americans who have lost everything only get $750 dollars?!” The post has received more than 87,000 likes.

Former President Donald Trump echoed that false claim at his Oct. 5 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“They’re offering them $750 to people whose homes have been washed away. And yet we send tens of billions of dollars to foreign countries that most people have never heard of,” he said. “Think of it. We give foreign countries hundreds of billions of dollars, and we’re handing North Carolina $750.” (See a related story, “Trump’s False Claim of Stolen Disaster Relief Funds.”)

Another post falsely suggested that FEMA hasn’t done anything to help communities battered by the storm. The Threads user asked, “Is this true: No FEMA, Red Cross, government agencies, NOTHING for Helene?? What a country.” The post is no longer available.

Other posts shared on X and Instagram claimed FEMA lacks sufficient funding to address future hurricanes, misleadingly suggesting that money that could be spent on disaster relief is instead going to foreign countries. The posts, which have received about 3.3 million views on X and over 100,000 likes across both platforms, read: “The Biden Harris regime is now saying FEMA does NOT have enough funds to make it through Hurricane season. RIGHT AFTER giving BILLIONS more to Ukraine.”

Funds Directed Specifically to Disaster Relief

The $750 payment mentioned by Trump and the social media posts represents only one form of immediate federal assistance available to storm survivors, and FEMA has said it has sufficient funding to support immediate response and recovery needs.

In addition, contrary to the online claims, FEMA is funded through a dedicated fund for disaster relief efforts.

FEMA launched a rumor response page to tackle a post-Helene flurry of misinformation. The White House also issued a memo on Oct. 5 addressing falsehoods about the government’s response to the hurricane.

“FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund has enough funding to support Hurricane Helene efforts and FEMA has what it needs for immediate response and recovery efforts,” the agency says. 

Biden echoed this sentiment in an Oct. 4 letter to Congress. But he did address the need for future funding. The federal government is currently operating under a short-term funding bill, which funds government operations through Dec. 20.

“While FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund has the resources it requires right now to meet immediate needs, the fund does face a shortfall at the end of the year,” Biden said. “Without additional funding, FEMA would be required to forego longer-term recovery activities in favor of meeting urgent needs.”

“The Congress should provide FEMA additional resources to avoid forcing that kind of unnecessary trade-off and to give the communities we serve the certainty of knowing that help will be ongoing, both for the short- and long-term,” he said.

FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund, or DRF, is provided by Congress through both annual discretionary appropriations and supplemental appropriations granted in response to certain major disasters. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Congress allocated $381 billion to the DRF between 1992 and 2021. Almost three-quarters of this total was granted through supplemental appropriations. 

As a dedicated federal spending account for disaster efforts, “no money is being diverted” from the DRF “to other non-disaster related efforts,” FEMA said. 

U.S. military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine has been provided by Congress since February 2022 through other supplemental appropriations.

FEMA uses the DRF to finance both short- and long-term response and recovery activities, including debris removal, food and medical aid distribution, the Individual Assistance Program, and future disaster mitigation projects. The $750 payment is an initial payment survivors may receive while FEMA determines eligibility for its many other offerings within the Individual Assistance Program.

“This [$750] is a type of assistance that you may be approved for soon after you apply, called Serious Needs Assistance. It is an upfront, flexible payment to help cover essential items like food, water, baby formula, breastfeeding supplies, medication and other emergency supplies,” the agency’s rumor response page explains. 

Additional forms of assistance address medical expenses, temporary housing needs and home repair costs, among other needs.

Eligible individuals can apply for assistance by calling the FEMA helpline at 1-800-621-3362, visiting disasterassistance.gov or downloading the FEMA app.

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Arabia, Christina, et al. “U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine.” Congressional Research Service. 22 May 2024.

Bogel-Burroughs, Nicholas, and Kate Selig. “Still Searching for Their Loved Ones, a Week After Hurricane Helene.” New York Times. 4 Oct 2024.

Bomprezzi, Peitro, et al. “Ukraine Support Tracker.” Kiel Institute for the World Economy. Accessed 8 Oct 2024.

Ebensberger, Richard. “FEMA prepares for Hurricane Helene’s landfall; stands up incident support base at Maxwell AFB.” Maxwell Air Force Base. 25 Sep 2024.

Federal Emergency Management Administration. “As Federal Assistance for Hurricane Helene Exceeds $210 Million, FEMA Prepares for Dual Response with Hurricane Milton Strengthening as it Moves Toward Gulf Coast of Florida.” 8 Oct 2024.

Federal Emergency Management Administration. “FEMA Launches Web Page to Respond to Rumors and Confirm the Facts Related to Hurricane Helene Response and Recovery.” Press release. 4 Oct 2024.

Federal Emergency Management Administration. “How a Disaster Gets Declared.” 22 Jul 2024.

Federal Emergency Management Administration. “How FEMA Works.” 23 Jan 2024.

Federal Emergency Management Administration. “Hurricane Helene: Rumor Response.” Accessed 6 Oct 2024.

Federal Emergency Management Administration. “Individuals and Households Program.” Press release. 22 Mar 2024.

Federal Emergency Management Administration. “When can I apply for Individual Assistance?” 16 May 2023.

Gore, D’Angelo. “Trump’s False Claim of Stolen Disaster Relief Funds.” FactCheck.org. 8 Oct 2024.

Sarnoff, Leah and Daniel Amarante. “Tracking Hurricane Helen’s destruction: Path, storm surge and rescue efforts.” ABC News. 5 Oct 2024.

Shapiro, Emily, et al. “Hurricane Helene live updates: Death toll surpasses 230 as rescue efforts continue.” ABC News. 8 Oct 2024.

Sperl, Jon. “FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund: Budgetary History and Projections.” Congressional Budget Office. 22 Nov 2022.

Sutton, Joe, et al. “Helene death toll rises to at least 227 across 6 states.” CNN. 5 Oct 2024.

Ukraine Oversight. Special Inspector General for Operation Atlantic Resolve. “Funding.” Accessed 8 Oct 2024.

Webster, Elizabeth. “FEMA Individual Assistance Programs: An Overview.” Congressional Research Service. 17 Apr 2024.

White House. “Interested Parties Memo: Fighting Hurricane Helene Falsehoods with Facts.” 5 Oct 2024.

White House. “Letter to Congress on Disaster Needs.” 4 Oct 2024.

White House. “Press Gaggle by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas En Route Greenville, SC.” 2 Oct 2024.

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This post was originally published on FactCheck.org.

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Quick Take

Project 2025 proposes dismantling the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Some social media posts misleadingly claim the project calls for closing the National Hurricane Center, a part of NOAA. A Heritage Foundation spokesperson said Project 2025 “does not call for eliminating the NHC,” though climate experts warned that the project’s proposals would hamper the NHC’s operations.

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Full Story

More than 180 people have been confirmed dead as of Oct. 2 across six states following the catastrophic impact of Hurricane Helene, stretching from Florida’s Gulf Coast to the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia, according to CNN.

The National Hurricane Center, which is part of the National Weather Service within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, has issued advisories and forecasts about the storm. In the midst of the hurricane, discussions about the future of the National Hurricane Center, or NHC, circulated on social media.

Some social media users misleadingly claimed that Project 2025, a policy agenda aimed at downsizing the federal government, has specifically called for the elimination of the NHC. Project 2025 was created and funded by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy think tank, as we’ve written.

“As Hurricane Helene is upgraded to a Category 4, it might be a good time to remind you Project 2025 intends to close the National Hurricane Center,” posts on Threads and Instagram claimed on Sept. 26.

Project 2025 provides a blueprint for “the next conservative President” on federal operations, the tax system, immigration enforcement, social welfare programs, and energy policy, particularly regarding climate change.

Former President Donald Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025. “I’m not going to read it,” Trump said during his presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. He also claimed to be unaware of who was behind the initiative, though portions of the plan were developed by advisers who served during Trump’s first term.

Trump has not publicly called for eliminating or dismantling the National Hurricane Center. But when he was president, he did propose deep cuts to NOAA, including smaller cuts to the National Weather Service.

Project 2025 talks about NOAA in its policy agenda published online, “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.” It proposes plans for the agency under the chapter “Department of Commerce,” written by Thomas F. Gilman, who was chief financial officer and assistant secretary for administration of the Department of Commerce during the Trump administration.

The project proposes that NOAA be “dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.”

However, Heritage Foundation spokesperson Ellen Keenan told us in an email, “Project 2025 does not call for eliminating the NHC or the NOAA. Those claims are false.”

Here’s what Project 2025 writes about the NHC:

Project 2025: The National Hurricane Center and National Environmental Satellite Service data centers provide important public safety and business functions as well as academic functions, and are used by forecasting agencies and scientists internationally. Data continuity is an important issue in climate science. Data collected by the department should be presented neutrally, without adjustments intended to support any one side in the climate debate.

Project 2025 calls NOAA “a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.” It criticized the administration’s efforts to predict and manage major weather events as “the fatal conceit of planning for the unplannable.”

The project argues that the “current organization corrupts its useful functions” and suggests that “it should be broken up and downsized.”

Experts Warn of Impact on NHC

Climate experts are questioning the motivations behind Project 2025’s proposal for the NOAA and the impact it would have on the National Hurricane Center.

“There are lots of ways they go after an agency without calling for its immediate elimination, and I think they are hiding behind the fact that they haven’t explicitly called for elimination,” Rachel Cleetus, policy director of the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told us. “But they’re calling for the kind of destructive actions that would seriously hobble the agency’s ability to do its job,” she said.

NOAA’s ability to predict major storms like Hurricane Helene depends on its various offices working together to provide real-time weather data as well as long-term climate trend data. “These different offices are working together very closely to provide … both short-term as well as long-range information to help inform weather and climate predictions,” Cleetus added. “So the idea that you would dismantle it and it would still continue to be able to provide the service, that’s just not accurate.”

Michael Mann, director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania, also told us the language in Project 2025 makes it “clear that NHC would be axed, at least in its current form. … It would create all sorts of confusion, uncertainty, disruption, etc. and the idea that the NHC could continue to fulfill its mission is absurd.”

“Without NOAA and the critical data [they] collect and maintain, NHC will be unable to operate in any useful capacity,” Mann said.

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Cleetus, Rachel. Policy director, Climate and Energy program, Union of Concerned Scientists. Phone interview with FactCheck.org. 1 Oct 2024.

Contorno, Steve. “Trump claims not to know who is behind Project 2025. A CNN review found at least 140 people who worked for him are involved.” 11 Jul 2024.

Hoffman, Riley. “Harris-Trump presidential debate transcript.” ABC News. 10 Sep 2024.

Keenan, Ellen. Senior communications manager, Special Initiatives. Heritage Foundation. Email to FactCheck.org. 30 Sep 2024.

Kiely, Eugene, D’Angelo Gore and Robert Farley. “A Guide to Project 2025.” FactCheck.org. 10 Sep 2024.

Mann Michael. Director, Penn Center for Science, Sustainability & the Media, Department of Earth & Environmental Science/Annenberg School for Communication. University of Pennsylvania. Emails to FactCheck.org. 30 Sep 2024.

Mufson, Steven, Jason Samenow and Brady Dennis. “White House proposes steep budget cuts leading climate science agency.” Washington Post. 3 Mar 2017.

Project 2025. “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.” Accessed 30 Sep 2024.

U.S. Department of Commerce. National Hurricane Center. Accessed 1 Oct 2024.

Wolfe, Elizabeth, et al. “Relief efforts continue after Hurricane Helene kills at least 180.” CNN. 2 Oct 2024.

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This post was originally published on FactCheck.org.

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Quick Take

In an interview, Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania said some people in his state think former President Donald Trump is a “terrible person” but they say “I will still vote for him.” A social media post misrepresents Fetterman’s comments to claim he supports Trump. The senator supports Vice President Kamala Harris.

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Full Story

Pennsylvania is one of the critical battlegrounds in the 2024 presidential election, with its 19 electoral votes making it a key state for the Republican and Democratic candidates. The state has seen the highest spending on television and radio ads, with over $138 million reserved by groups supporting the two presidential candidates.

Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania has been vocal about supporting Vice President Kamala Harris since President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race on July 21. In a July 22 post on X, Fetterman expressed his backing for Harris, writing, “Proud to support and be all in for the next president, @KamalaHarris.”

Despite this clear endorsement, a Sept. 23 post on Threads misrepresents Fetterman’s comments, suggesting he was shifting his support to former President Donald Trump. The post says, “Wait! Did John Fetterman just say he’s voting For Trump[?] Dude was voted in as a lobotomized Dem and came out a based Republican lol[.] He really should just switch parties at this point.” Text on a video embedded in the post reads, “DEMOCRATS PANIC: John Fetterman makes SHOCKING admission on Trump! BAD NEWS FOR KAMALA!”

This mischaracterization of Fetterman’s remarks stemmed from his interview at The Atlantic Festival in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 19. Fetterman was speaking with the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, when he discussed how some voters continue to support Trump despite his controversial history.

In a short clip of the interview shared on the Threads post, Goldberg asked Fetterman what people see “in Donald Trump that makes them want to vote for him?”

Fetterman responded, “I know some people that are like, ‘I personally think he’s a terrible person, or I am appalled by some of these things. But I fundamentally think that I will still vote for him.’”

In his response, Fetterman also said, “There is energy and there’s kinds of anger on the ground in Pennsylvania, and people are very committed, and Trump is going to be strong, and we have to respect that.”

Trump has been competitive in Pennsylvania in the last two presidential elections. He barely won Pennsylvania in 2016 and lost the state by a slim margin in 2020.

When asked for comment on the social media post, a spokesperson for Fetterman told us in a Sept. 26 email, “He’s not saying he feels this way, he is saying this is how people feel.”

“In this same interview, he spoke at length about his support for VP Harris. He also campaigned for her in Pennsylvania this weekend and has campaigned with her in the commonwealth multiple times in the past month,” the spokesperson added.

Earlier in the Atlantic interview, Fetterman said Pennsylvanians will have to decide if they want four years of Trump’s “kind of chaos” or Harris’ “new way forward.” He added, “And it’s going to be close, and she will prevail.”

On Sept. 5, Fetterman shared a photo alongside Kamala Harris, saying, “Wheels down in Pixburgh with our NEXT PRESIDENT, @KamalaHarris!”

He reiterated his commitment to the Democratic ticket in a post on Sept. 26, saying, “Tonight, I’m in Butler County in a room with the @TheButlerDems. The message: fight for every vote in every county. The mission: President @KamalaHarris.”

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Bidgood, Jess. “The Four Swing States That Could Matter Most.” New York Times. 25 Sep 2024.

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. “President of the United States, County Breakdown.” 8 Nov 2016.

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. “President of the United States, County Breakdown.” 3 Nov 2020.

Sen. John Fetterman. Spokesperson. Email to FactCheck.org. 26 Sep 2024.

John Fetterman. “Proud to support and be all in for the next president, @KamalaHarris.” X. 22 Jul 2024.

John Fetterman. “Tonight, I’m in Butler County in a room with the @TheButlerDems. The message: fight for every vote in every county. The mission: President @KamalaHarris.” X. 26 Sep 2024.

John Fetterman. “Wheels down in Pixburgh with our NEXT PRESIDENT, @KamalaHarris!” X. 5 Sep 2024.

The Atlantic. “The Rise of Political Polarization With Senator John Fetterman | The Atlantic Festival 2024.” 20 Sep 2024.

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Quick Take

Montana temporarily took down its online system used by citizens and military personnel voting abroad to fix a technical glitch that omitted the Democratic presidential and vice presidential candidates. Social media posts baselessly claimed that the Republican secretary of state purposely and illegally omitted the Democrats.

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Full Story

Montana has supported the Republican candidate for president in every election since 1996. It doesn’t appear Montana’s presidential voting pattern will change in November. Former President Donald Trump leads his Democratic challenger, Vice President Kamala Harris, by about 17 percentage points, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average. 

But there have been concerns about efforts to prevent voters from successfully casting a ballot during this year’s election. 

Earlier this year, the state’s Supreme Court struck down four laws passed in 2021 by the Republican-led state legislature that placed restrictions on voting. The restrictions — including largely ending same-day voter registration and eliminating student ID cards as a form of voter identification — were considered “unconstitutional” by the state’s high court. 

Now, some social media posts are making the unfounded claim that the Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen, a Republican, purposely and illegally left Harris’ name off ballots on the electronic system used by voters living overseas.

Comedian and Harris supporter D.L. Hughley shared a post from Occupy Democrats that read, “If a state left Trump off the ballot, do you think the media would respond with a shrug of the shoulders? The Montana secretary of state left Kamala Harris off the ballot. … They should be forced to start over, and the secretary of state should be jailed.”

A post on Threads said, in part, “Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen left Kamala Harris’s name OFF the Montana absentee ballot! …Republicans out here using weaponized incompetence to steal the election.”

However, the posts have mischaracterized a glitch in Montana’s electronic system for voters eligible to vote early under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, or UOCAVA. Such eligible voters are U.S. citizens living abroad and military members and their spouses. Montana reported that the state received 4,368 UOCAVA ballots in the 2020 election, according to the Election Assistance Commission.

The technical problem, which was resolved within hours, caused the names of Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, not to appear on the electronic ballot on the first day of early voting, Sept. 20.

A Sept. 23 press release from Jacobsen’s office said, “No, Montana did not leave a candidate off the 2024 General Election ballot. Contrary to egregious misinformation campaigns circulating online, the Montana Secretary of State’s Office certified all qualified candidates to appear on its 2024 General Election ballot on August 22.”

The press release went on to say that the “2024 General Election officially began [Sept. 20] for eligible voters covered under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA). Shortly after going live at 8 a.m., election officials were notified about Montana’s Electronic Absentee System (EAS), which is the system exclusively used by a small number of eligible UOCAVA (e.g. Military serving abroad and overseas citizens) voters to access and mark their ballot. The Secretary of State’s Office took the EAS offline while working with the vendor until troubleshooting was completed.” [Emphasis is theirs.]

By the afternoon of Sept. 20, “the system was back online and available to eligible UOCAVA voters, including those few voters who may have been impacted,” the statement said.

“No [print] ballots were affected, including those that will be sent to registered absentee voters and those that will be presented to voters at the polling place on Election Day,” the release said.  

The Office of the Secretary of State told us that it had received a report on Sept. 20 of a ballot not displaying properly for a UOCAVA voter who was using the electronic voting system.

In an email to FactCheck.org on Sept. 25, the office said: “As mentioned, the system was taken offline in the morning for troubleshooting with the vendor, and it was back online in the afternoon. The potentially impacted UOCAVA voter who submitted a ballot has since been contacted, and no further action is required.”

The office later clarified: “The report we received [Sept. 20] from one of our counties stated that a voter had called them and reported that the system had not displayed Vice President Harris (and Tim Walz) under the race for President.”

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

270towin.com. “Montana.” Accessed 25 Sep 2024.

Five Thirty Eight. Montana : U.S. Senate : 2024. Accessed 25 Sep 2024. 

Montana Democratic Party v. Christie Jacobsen. DA 22-0667. Montana Supreme Court. 27 Mar 2024.

NBC Montana Staff. “Montana Secretary of State served lawsuit for illegal removal of voter signatures.” NBC Montana. 10 Jul 2024. 

Montana Secretary of State. Military & Overseas Voters. “UOCAVA Eligible Voters.” Accessed 26 Sep 2024.

Montana Secretary of State. Bulletin. “No, Montana did not leave a candidate off the 2024 General Election ballot.” 23 Sep 2024. 

Montana Secretary of State Office. Email to FactCheck.org. 23 Sep 2024. 

Montana Secretary of State Office. Email to FactCheck.org. 25 Sep 2024.

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